Rose Weasley and the Lost Hallow
by kellythefangirl
Summary: Rose Weasley, Scorpius Malfoy, and Albus Potter start their third year at Hogwarts only to find another sinister force at work this year-one that may depend on the three of them to reach its full potential power. The third book in a series following the next generation during their time at Hogwarts.
1. A Knock on the Window

**Hi everyone! This is the third book in a series, so if you haven't read the other two I think you should probably read them first; the first one is called Rose Weasley and the New Order and you can find it on my profile. Anyway, if you've read those already, thanks for sticking with the series and I really hope you like this chapter! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 1

A KNOCK ON THE WINDOW

It was around midnight on Uncle Harry's birthday when Scorpius Malfoy appeared outside Rose Weasley's window. The party that Gran had insisted on having had ended and Rose had finally finished helping Aunt Ginny clean up the garden. Teddy and Victiore had stayed for the night, since Victiore was going to London with Aunt Ginny and Gran in the morning for wedding planning, and most of the rest of the house was asleep. Rose had tried to sleep and found that she couldn't, so she started reading at her desk. It wasn't uncommon for her during that summer; she had been having nightmares some nights about what had happened that May in the Forest. After reading for a while, she heard a sound near her window and looked up to find her owl hovering outside, tapping on the glass with her beak. Rose let Musetta in and passed her a few of the food pellets. "Nice to have you back," Rose said, opening the cage to let her in. "Seen Maximillian around?" Scorpius had stopped sending owls a few days ago and Rose was beginning to worry. Musetta clicked in response and Rose just nodded. She looked at his last letter sitting opened on her desk and sighed, and picked her book back up. She had been reading for a few more minutes when she heard another noise and Musetta made an annoyed-sounding noise. Rose looked up, wondering what could be outside her second floor window at midnight other than her owl and saw Scorpius, sitting on a broom with nothing but a backpack. Rose got up immediately and threw open the window. "Malfoy, what—?" she managed before Scorpius stepped onto her windowsill. She moved back mutely while he came fully inside and shut the window.

"Hi, Weasley. I was going to get here earlier, but I saw lights and stuff and I didn't want to ruin anything—what was it?" he asked, leaning the broom against the wall.

"Er, Uncle Harry's birthday," Rose said.

"Oh. Okay. Well, I, uh… I waited till they'd gone, and I would've gone to the door but I, uh… I thought you'd probably be asleep and I didn't want your dad to answer the door or something. So I just… flew around till I saw you," he explained. "Glad you don't share with the little Potter girl, that would've been awkward."

"Right, but… why are you here?" she asked. "And why haven't you written? You said write every day, but I felt stupid sending letters without replies."

"Um…" Scorpius mumbled. "Can it wait till morning?"

"No, it can't, you knocked on my window in the middle of the night," Rose said. "What's going on?"

Scorpius looked down uncomfortably. "Uh, I… I left."

"You left?" Rose said, still confused. Her eyes widened when she realized what he meant. "You _ran away_?"

"Not exactly—well, yes," he said, "but no. Can I— can I sit down?" Rose moved away from her desk chair and he sat down as she sat on the bed. "So… you know I've been grounded for the Modernists thing, not that there's anything to do in Wiltshire." Rose nodded and he continued. "So my grandfather decided I was going to go to Durmstrang next year and my father agreed. My mum doesn't really argue with him. I got mad, obviously, and they told me that if I didn't like it then I could stop disgracing my family and leave. So I did." He sighed. "I, uh… I don't mean to… I didn't have anywhere else to go."

Rose looked back at him and blinked. "So you're really leaving?"

"Yeah," he said, and smiled a little. "I haven't even really thought about that yet."

"Where's your things for school?" Rose asked.

Scorpius frowned. "I couldn't get the trunk to levitate without setting off the Trace, and they certainly weren't going to do it. I took my wand and a few changes of clothes, and I thought you might know someone older who'd help me get my things."

Rose nodded. "I think Teddy would help, or Victiore."

"Okay," Scorpius said.

Rose didn't really know what to say; she couldn't just wake up her parents, but she'd be in trouble forever if he stayed in her room. "Er… Teddy and Victiore are sleeping in our sitting room tonight, we can tell them what happened and you could stay there till morning."

"Oh, okay," Scorpius said, shrugging. "Sure. Who's Teddy?"

"Teddy Lupin. He's Uncle Harry's godson, but he's practically adopted. He's 20, so he can help you get your trunk tomorrow, I bet," Rose explained as they snuck downstairs. They got down to the ground floor and reached the sitting room. Teddy and Victiore were curled up on the couch together and Rose almost felt bad about waking them up, but they couldn't really just discover Scorpius in the morning. Rose gently nudged Victiore and she stirred slowly.

"Rose?" Victiore mumbled. "What is it?"

"Uh, hi, Victiore, could you wake up Teddy?" Rose asked.

"Why?" she mumbled groggily. She saw Scorpius then and sat up. "Rose?"

"Vic?" Teddy mumbled from the couch. "Why're you up?"

"Rose, why is Scorpius in the sitting room?" Victiore asked quietly and Teddy sat up pretty quickly.

"Who?"

"Uh, hi, Teddy Lupin? I'm Scorpius," he said and held out his hand. Teddy shook it hesitantly and looked questioningly at Victiore.

"The Malfoy Gryffindor I told you about," Victiore explained quickly before turning back to the two of them. "Why…?"

"I, uh, got kicked out. Basically," Scorpius said awkwardly.

"Can he sleep on the other sofa?" Rose asked quickly. "Just for tonight. We'll explain in the morning."

"No, you should probably explain now," Victiore said. "Scorpius, you're 13. They can't just make you leave."

"Well…" he said awkwardly.

"Did they make you leave?" Victiore asked, raising an eyebrow.

"They said I could either leave or go to Durmstrang and… it was just too much, I couldn't take it anymore," he muttered, looking down awkwardly.

"Did you bring your stuff?" Teddy asked, looking at his backpack and broom.

"Not really," Scorpius said. "I couldn't levitate it because of the Trace."

"He was wondering if you could help," Rose added.

"Me? You want me to go get a trunk from Malfoy Manor in the middle of the night?" Teddy asked."No, tomorrow morning," Rose said. Teddy groaned and leaned back down onto the couch.

"This is mental," he said. "Are you sure they really wanted you to leave? What if they're looking for you?"

"They're not," Scorpius said, "trust me."

Teddy sat up again, and at that precise moment there was a loud cracking noise and Holly appeared, wearing a woman's coat that was much too large for her. A large trunk engraved with the letters S.M. landed with a loud thud next to her. Holly looked at Teddy and Victiore in alarm and then relaxed when she turned to Rose and Scorpius. "Master Malfoy!" she squeaked. "They—they freed me, sir…"

"Holly?" Scorpius asked incredulously. "Why?"

"I—I told them that I wished they hadn't told you to leave and they said that I should follow you then and so I did but first I thought you might be wanting your things. I told Maximillian to come here," she added.

"How did you know to come here?" Scorpius asked.

"I thought you would go to Miss Weasley's house, sir, because you wrote to her all summer."

"That was smart, Holly, thanks," he said. "…What did they do when they found out?"

Holly stopped smiling. "Master Malfoy, they… they burned your name off of the family tree."

"Yeah, thought so," Scorpius muttered.

"I think my aunt has some baby clothes in the attic," Victiore said. "We can get you some… er, Holly, right?"

Holly nodded and went over to Victiore enthusiastically. "Thank you, miss!"

"Victiore Weasley," she told her.

"Miss Weasley!"

"What is going on?" a voice asked loudly from the staircase. Rose turned around to find Uncle Harry standing at the top of the staircase looking at them expectantly.

"Uncle Harry… I, uh—this is Scorpius," Rose said, pushing him in front of her. Uncle Harry came down the stairs and stopped in front of Scorpius. Scorpius looked back at Rose and then turned to him.

"Scorpius Malfoy, sir," he said, extending his hand nervously. "Er, happy birthday."

"Thanks," Uncle Harry said hesitantly, and shook his hand, then looked past him at the others. "And who are you?" he asked Holly.

"Er, Holly, sir," she squeaked. "I work—well, I used to work for Master Malfoy and his family…"

"Right, okay, hi, Holly, I'm Harry Potter," he said, and knelt down to shake hands with the little elf that came running for him.

"Harry Potter, sir? It's an honor to meet you, sir!" she said, smiling widely as they shook hands. Uncle Harry stood back up and looked over at Victiore and Teddy.

"His family disowned him, Harry," Teddy said quietly. Uncle Harry nodded and turned to Rose.

"Can he just stay here for tonight?" Rose asked. "Please?"

Uncle Harry sighed. "I don't know, Rose…"

"Well, of course he can!" another voice said from the stairs. Rose turned around and was relieved to see Gran descending the stairs and walking up to Uncle Harry. "Harry James Potter, he's just a boy! Where else would he go? Sleep on the streets of London?" She turned to Scorpius. "Come upstairs with me, love, I'm Mrs. Weasley, we'll get you some blankets."

Uncle Harry looked at Rose and said, "That means yes, then," he said, shrugging. Rose expected as much; she didn't think she had ever seen anyone question Gran. "Get upstairs and get some sleep. We'll talk about this more in the morning." Rose was happy to escape the situation and ran back up to her room. She almost laughed when she thought of what would happen in the morning when the rest of the house woke up.


	2. The Ministry of Magic

**Hi everyone! Thanks for reading, I hope you like this chapter! Again, I don't own anything Harry Potter related, so yeah. Enjoy! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 2

THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC

When Rose woke up the next morning, she got up as quickly as she could and left her room and made it down one flight of stairs before she saw Al, James, Hugo, Lily, and Scorpius sitting along the banister at the top of the staircase down to the ground floor, Hugo holding the cord of what turned out to be an Extendable Ear. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"They're talking about what to do with me," Scorpius whispered. "Lower your voice, they think we're in James's room." Rose sat down next to Al and listened to the conversation at the kitchen table.

"Ron, he doesn't have anywhere else to go!" Gran said, and Rose heard her dad sigh.

"We can't let him stay here, Mum," he said.

"Why not?"

"We don't have room for him."

"He could share with Al, I don't think he'd mind," Aunt Ginny said.

"How do we know that he didn't just run away?" her dad said. "We'd get in trouble for keeping him here."

"Well, if it pissed off the Malfoys…" Uncle Harry said quietly.

"Harry! I'm the head of Magical Law Enforcement, I can't get arrested," Rose's mother said.

"Why would he lie? If he was going to run away, why hadn't he done it before?" Victoire interjected. There was a short silence at this.

"There could be all kinds of reasons," Rose's dad said.

"Why don't you ask him?" Teddy asked. "I mean, you're all talking about him, but you're not talking to him at all."

"He's 13," Rose's dad said.

"So? He's got a brain, hasn't he?" Teddy asked, sounding progressively more annoyed. "If you all don't want him here, you have to put him somewhere. You can't just send him back to the Malfoys."

"Why not?" Rose's dad muttered.

"Ronald, please," Rose's mum sighed. "I don't like them any more than you, but Scorpius hasn't done anything to you."

After a moment, Rose's dad spoke. "Fine. Where could he go?"

"Vic, maybe your parents?" Teddy asked.

"No, Min really can't stand him," Victoire sighed.

"Okay, well… how about Luna?" Rose's mum suggested.

"That'll probably work. We should call her," Rose's dad said.

"Should we get the kids to come down?" Aunt Ginny asked. Hugo began pulling the Ear up quickly at this and Rose dashed to the end of the hall with the others. They managed to reach the general area of James's room by the time they heard Uncle Harry's voice calling them downstairs.

"We think it would be better for everyone if you could stay with our friend Luna Scamander, Scorpius," Rose's mother said. "She'll come over to pick you up sometime tomorrow."

"Okay," Scorpius said, shrugging. "Anywhere's better than there," he added under his breath as Rose's mum turned to the kitchen table to pick up two envelopes.

"Lily, Hugo, these came for you," she said, smiling, and Hugo snatched his letter out of her hands. He ripped it open and read eagerly despite knowing what it said, and looked at their mother excitedly.

"When are we going to Diagon Alley?" he asked eagerly.

Rose's mother looked at the other adults. "Should we go today?" she asked. Rose's dad shrugged and Uncle Harry nodded.

"Yeah, that'd be a good idea. Scorpius needs supplies too and I don't want to put Luna to the trouble, her boys aren't in school yet."

"You're right. Mum, Ginny, are you and Victoire still going to London today? You could go with us," Rose's dad said.

"All right, then, let's go," Uncle Harry said.

"Harry, can you fit Molly and Victoire in your car? Ours is a bit small, and we're driving Scorpius," Hermione said, and Harry nodded.

"Yeah, I think so," he said, as they walked out the door, and Rose waited for Scorpius to catch up to her.

"Hey," she said.

"Hi."

"You don't have to go back," Rose said. "That's good, right?""Yeah," he said, smiling a little, but as they got into the back seat, he said, "My letter must've gotten sent to the manor, I don't know what to buy."

"You can just look off mine," Rose offered, and she handed it to him to read while her parents started the car. Her dad was driving—he'd taken the test again to please her mum, despite the confusion of the instructor.

"Ready, everyone?" her mum asked. They nodded and as Rose's dad pulled out of the driveway, her mum turned around to face them. "We're going to have to make a stop at my office," she said. "I just need to get some things to work on later since I'm taking the day off."

"What your mother means is that she's a workaholic," her dad said.

"I'm the head of a government department, Ron," her mum said. "I'm taking the day off, I just need to keep everything in order."

"Okay," he said, smirking.

Her mother rolled her eyes and continued. "We'll be in and out, it'll be quick. So, Scorpius, do you have your supply list?"

He looked up. "Well, no, but I'm taking the same classes as Rose so I can just get the same things as her."

"All right then," Rose's mum said, and turned back around. After a minute, Scorpius looked up in confusion from the list.

"Hey, Weasley, how do you need 11 textbooks?"

"What?" Rose asked, a little nervous, and looked over his shoulder. "No I don't."

"Yeah, you do," he insisted, pointing at her books list. "See? Under electives, you have four. _Unfogging the Future, Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles,_ and _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,_ right? But then there's this here, _Spellman's Syllabary_ , and I thought you dropped Ancient Runes."

Rose's mother turned around and gave Rose a look and Rose shrugged. "Er, I did. Must be a misprint. I'll ask about it at school."

Scorpius shrugged too. "Weird."

"Yeah." The car pulled to a stop when they reached Westminster and they parked across the street from the familiar phone booth.

"Everyone out," Rose's mother said, and as they exited the car and Scorpius and Hugo crossed the street, she whispered to Rose, "I'll get you the Runes book on my own, okay?"

Rose nodded and they followed the others across the street, where they saw they had already gone down. Rose and her mother stepped in and the booth slowly lowered itself down to the ground floor of the Ministry of Magic. Rose always felt a little awed when she entered the place, with the large fountains and fireplaces and all the professional people bustling past her. Scorpius looked a little bewildered by the mass of people, and she got the feeling that he'd never been there before. "All right everyone, my office is this way," Rose's mum said, and they weaved through the crowd on their way to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement on the other side of the fountain. As they walked Rose heard her parents talking.

"Why are there so many people? I thought you said it was a slow day today."

"I thought it was. It was supposed to be. I wonder what's going on."

"Hermione…" her dad said, looking pointedly at an even more concentrated smaller crowd nearby the great fountain, and they all looked to find Uncle Percy surrounded by reporters and flashing cameras. "What's he got himself into?" her dad asked under his breath as they pushed closer.

"Mr. Weasley, what can you tell us about the rumors that the Auror office has discovered illicit activities in foreign regions with ties to You-Know-Who?" one reporter asked.

"Let's get closer," Rose whispered to Scorpius, and they pushed through the crowd until they were near the front.

"Well, the doings of the Auror office are confidential as a necessary security measure," Uncle Percy explained, which spawned another wave of reporters desperately trying to be heard. "I can assure you, though, we have no evidence to suggest any more You-Know-Who sympathizers exist than did previously."

"He's such a bloody politician, of course there is," a voice muttered from behind them, and Rose turned around to see Lucy staring angrily past the reporters at her father.

"Hi, Lucy," Rose said.

"Hey, Rose. Oh, and hi, Malfoy. What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I'm not a Malfoy anymore," he said shortly. Lucy looked at Rose, seeming a little surprised and very impressed.

"That's… good."

"Mr. Weasley, what do you have to say about the rumors making accusations against certain high-ranking officials such as Lucius Malfoy?" Rita Skeeter burst out, and Uncle Percy looked around nervously.

"I can actually turn that question over to Mr. Malfoy himself. Lucius?" Rose quickly looked at Scorpius nervously as his grandfather stepped into the lights and reporters started yelling questions at him. Lucius looked around and his eyes fixed on a spot uncomfortably close to Rose. She turned to look at Scorpius making glaring eye contact with Lucius and turned back towards the Malfoy patriarch, crossing her arms and staring as well. His eyes flickered to her and he shook his head ever so slightly, before turning away again and addressing the reporters.

"Rose! We're going!" her mother called from further back in the crowd, and she turned to leave. She noticed that Scorpius was still rooted to the same spot, staring at Lucius, and pulled his arm a little to get him to move.

"Bye, Lucy," she said quickly, and tugged Scorpius away from the scene. He turned to her as they walked.

"I guess that settles it, then," he sighed as they reached her parents.

"You're okay, right?" Rose checked as they entered the elevator.

"I'm fine, Weasley," he said, staring at the ground. Hugo looked over at Rose and glanced questioningly at Scorpius. Rose shook her head a little and he turned away again.

"Hermione," a man said as soon as the elevator doors opened. "Thank Merlin. Here's the paperwork for the trial tomorrow, you'll be here, 8 o'clock?"

"Yes, John, I'll be here," she said. "Has the psychiatrist from St. Mungo's made a statement yet?"

"No, but they're willing to testify," John told her, and they walked over to her desk, talking over the file John had been holding.

"What trial?" Rose asked curiously. "Who's going on trial?"

Her dad hesitated. "A former Death Eater…well, sort of. His only really provable offense was the Battle of Hogwarts, but you know, bit important, that one. There's been some new evidence saying that he wasn't under the Imperius Curse like he said before. I know the guy who made the arrest, actually."

"Can you tell us who it was?" Hugo asked eagerly. Her dad hesitated again before shrugging.

"Everyone will know tomorrow anyway. It was a man named Goyle. He was in my year at school, quite dull but still a git," he muttered. Rose and Scorpius shared a look. Poor Devon. Everyone had known that his father hadn't been perfect during the war, but this was solid proof that he was a Death Eater. That couldn't be good.

"So, Scorpius, you've got money, haven't you?" her dad asked. "For the books?"

"If you don't, I have some extra…" Rose began, but her dad shook his head at her.

"Rosie, he's the heir to a massive fortune. He's got money."

"Right now I do," Scorpius said quietly. "I'll have to move it to another vault, though, before…"

"What?" Rose asked.

"…Before they remember to cut me off," he muttered.

"We'll go to Gringotts first," Rose said quietly, not really knowing what to say to that. Her mother thankfully returned at that point and led the way to the elevator.

"Diagon Alley," she said, and they were out of the Ministry as quickly as possible. Rose wasn't exactly disappointed to leave this time.


	3. Diagon Alley

**Hi everyone! Sorry it took so long! I'll update more regularly from now on, I promise. Anyway, any copyrighted stuff isn't mine, blah blah blah, and I hope you enjoy this chapter! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 3

DIAGON ALLEY

When they arrived at the Leaky Cauldron, Rose saw her parents notice a man sitting at the bar in the corner, talking to Uncle Harry and their cousins. "Who is he?" she asked, and her mother simply walked over to him, motioning for her to follow. Rose did, curious, and Hugo and Scorpius trailed behind her.

"Cepheus," her dad said, shaking hands with the man and smiling. "You remember Hermione."

"Yes, lovely to meet you, Mrs. Weasley," Cepheus said, smiling. "And these three are yours, Ron? I thought you only had two."

"Oh, er, no, well… this is my daughter Rose and my son Hugo," he said awkwardly. "Rose, Hugo, this is Cepheus Barton, he'll be your Potions teacher this year."

"Hello," he said cheerfully, and shook hands with both of them. "I know your dad from my Auror days. Got a bit too old for it, I'm afraid… and who are you exactly, young man?" Barton asked, looking at Scorpius.

"This is Rose's friend Scorpius," Hermione said. "He's staying with us at the moment."

"Right, nice to meet you," Barton said, and shook Scorpius's hand. Rose was grateful, and she could tell Scorpius was as well, that her mother hadn't said Malfoy. "Well, don't let me keep you, you seem to have a big day. Are you just getting your wand like Lily here, Hugo?"

"Yes, sir," Hugo said excitedly, and Barton smiled.

"Well, good luck to you, then. I hope I'll see you soon, Ron, it was nice to talk to you," he said, and they all left through the back together.

"James, take Al and get your supplies. We need to get to Ollivander's before there's a line," Uncle Harry said when the back wall transformed into the beginning of the street to the shops ahead.

James groaned. "Can't we just wait?"

"No, I don't want to be here longer than I have to. In fact, take Lily's list too."

"That's not a bad idea, go with them, Rose," her dad said. "And, er… take Scorpius."

"We have to stop at Gringotts," Rose said, "remember?"

"Go with James, then," her dad said, "he needs to get money for the books anyway."

"What about Mum?" Rose complained.

"She's taking Hugo, I have to talk to Uncle George."

"Fine," Rose sighed, and Hugo and Lily set off with their parents while Ron took off in the direction of the joke shop. James sighed.

"Can't believe this," he muttered. "Gringotts, then."

When they arrived at Gringotts, Rose entered first and saw that it was mostly empty apart from a few people wandering around and the goblins. They walked up to the first goblin they saw and he peered over the tall counter at them. "Can I help you?" he asked, sounding irritated.

"Er, Potter, Weasley, and Malfoy vaults please," she said, and the goblin's eyes looked over the four of them.

"I'm not going to ask," he muttered. "Keys, please."

They produced the keys and he sighed. "One moment." He walked around the edge of the counter and down the hallway, motioning for them to follow. When they had almost reached the door to the vaults, they heard someone running behind them.

"Guys!" They turned around to see Teddy running for them, skidding to a stop right in front of them.

"Is he with you?" the goblin asked, sighing.

"Er, yeah," Al said. "Teddy, what are you doing here?"

"Well, I'm supposed to meet Victoire after they do the shopping, but I… I'm nervous," he admitted. "I don't really want to be anywhere around the wedding stuff yet. They moved up the date, you know; that did wonders for my nerves."

"They moved it?" Rose asked. "Will we be home for it?"

"Oh, well, yeah, it's around Christmas now," he said, shrugging. "Don't worry, Rose, you have to be home, I think."

"What?" she asked. "Why?"

"Er, you might be a bridesmaid, I don't know, I really wasn't paying much attention when they were picking that stuff."

"Oh, god," Rose moaned as they climbed into the cart.

"Isn't that a good thing?" Scorpius asked, laughing a little.

"No! I have to be… in front of people," Rose whispered.

"You have stage fright?" he asked.

"This is not the time to make fun of me, Malfoy," she muttered, and the cart took off at approximately a billion miles an hour, effectively stopping all conversation. It rocketed to a stop after a few moments and the goblin stepped out.

"Vault 213, Malfoy," he said, and Scorpius hopped out.

"Er, can I get a new vault? A separate one, under my name?" he asked.

"I suppose," the goblin grumbled.

Scorpius took out a large burlap bag that sat in the middle of the vault and climbed back into the cart. "Just take me to the nearest empty one," he said, and the cart took off again.

"What is that?" Al asked, looking at the bag.

"My trust fund," he said.

"But you're not supposed to be able to take that out until you're of age," Al said.

"Parents aren't supposed to kick you out until you're of age," Teddy said. The cart went silent until it stopped in front of Vault 267.

"Deposit what you want to, I'll have a key made," the goblin said.

"Thank you," he said, and took a handful of coins out, stuffing them in his pockets, before throwing the rest of the bag into the vault.

They stopped at the other vaults without issue and Rose was beginning to think it went rather well, when the doors to the front hall of the bank opened and Scorpius almost backed right into her. "You're kidding," he muttered, and Rose looked over at him, confused.

"What?" she asked, and he nodded to a tall, dark-haired woman at a counter near the door.

"It's my mother," he said. "Maybe she won't see us, come on." They led the other three along the side of the other row of counters, and had almost reached the door when the woman turned around and stopped dead. "Crap," he sighed as she ran over to them.

"Scorpius! Oh, are you all right?" she sighed and pulled him into a hug. Scorpius made eye contact with Rose and looked completely exasperated. "I've been so worried!"

"I'm fine, Mum," he groaned, backing up when she finally let him go. She noticed Rose next to him and smiled hesitantly.

"You must be Rose," she said. "I'm Mrs. Malfoy."

"Hi," Rose said slowly.

"You're the Potters? James and Albus?" she asked them.

"Yeah, hi," Al said, shaking her hand, as James looked intentionally distracted. "And that's our… er, that's Teddy Lupin."

"Hi," he said, and they shook hands as well.

"Thank you for… taking care of him," she said, and Teddy shrugged. "Scorpius, I'm so glad I found you, your father's just down the road at the owl post, I'll go get him…"

"No, Mum, don't!" Scorpius said loudly as she turned to the door, and she sighed.

"Scorpius, I know that you and your father and grandfather said… some things, but darling, I want you to come home."

"I'm not coming home if it's going to be the same as before, and it is! Even if they say it'll be different it won't. I'm going to Hogwarts and having the friends I want and I'm not taking back anything I said."

"Scorpius…" Mrs. Malfoy said, but he shook his head.

"They told me I could go and I did. I'm not going back," he said. "We're leaving," he added, and walked straight past his mother and out the door. Rose glanced at Mrs. Malfoy on her way out and she called after her.

"Er, Rose? …Would it be too much to ask to… write to me every so often? I just… want to know how he's doing." Rose turned around; James, Al, and Teddy had already left. She turned back to Mrs. Malfoy and nodded.

"Sure. I'll write every month or so."

"Thank you," she said, and smiled sadly as Rose left the bank.

"What was that?" Scorpius asked.

Rose shrugged. "She told me to talk to you, I told her no." She was starting to get a little concerned about how much sneaking around she would have to do this year; between this and the Time Turner, she knew it would be just her luck that it wouldn't be the peaceful year she was hoping to finally get. The rumors they had heard at the Ministry didn't instill much confidence in her either.

"Hey, Teddy, have you heard anything at work about… new Death Eaters?" she asked hesitantly.

"What?" he asked quickly.

"Well, I just… we heard rumors, at the Ministry, and I know since you're in Auror training, you might know whether they're true."

Teddy sighed. "The number of Dark wizards fluctuates all the time. Maybe some people got… inspired by that Dark Mark stuff a couple years ago. Don't worry about it, Rose."

"What about Theodore Nott? Have you heard anything about him?" Al asked, and Rose saw a nervous expression flash on his face before he shrugged.

"Is that the guy that kidnapped you lot? Haven't heard anything since then," he said, and Al nodded slowly. "Let's go get you your supplies," he suggested, and they started to walk down the street to Flourish and Blotts. Al walked over to Rose and Scorpius and glanced at Teddy.

"Did you believe him?" he asked them.

"Not really," Rose said grimly.

Al sighed. "Brilliant."


	4. Back to Hogwarts

**Hi again! Thanks so much for reading! Reviews are great, I love hearing from you! Enjoy the chapter! -Kelly**

CHAPTER FOUR

BACK TO HOGWARTS

Rose climbed into the cramped Ministry car, crowded for the first time by the substantially greater amount of luggage. She waved goodbye to Gran and Granddad from the window as the car pulled out of the driveway and towards London. They followed the Potter car most of the way there, and after a while she got the familiar headache yet again.

 _Are you on your way yet Weasley?_

 _Yeah, are you?_

 _Yeah. Your Aunt Luna's… nice I guess. Little odd though. Her twins are completely mad too._

 _She's not my aunt… not really. But yeah, you kinda get used to it._

 _Well, until I do, I'd rather talk to you._

 _We really have to stop doing this, Scorpius._

 _How else am I going to talk to you?_

 _Buy a cell phone. You've got trust fund money now._

 _I don't know how to use those things. And don't they not work at Hogwarts anyway?_

 _Lucy's pretty close to fixing that, I think._

Rose swore she could almost hear him shrug. _Maybe. Fine, then. See you at King's Cross._

 _Yeah._

"You okay, Rose? You just kinda spaced out," Hugo said, tapping her on the shoulder. She smiled quickly.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Okay…oh, did I show you? Granddad said he could fix my iPod so it'd work at Hogwarts, look!" Rose watched as Hugo pulled out his iPod from his pocket, which looked basically the same except for the addition of a large battery glued onto the back.

"I don't think that's going to work, Hugo," Rose said, smiling. She pulled out her wand and touched the tip to the iPod. The screen immediately went static and then black. Hugo groaned. "It's all right, Lucy might be able to fix it for you."

"Or you could try reading," their mother said from the front seat pointedly.

"I read, Mum," Hugo insisted.

"Quidditch books," Rose scoffed.

"Don't listen to her, Hugo," their dad told him. "Quidditch books are brilliant literature. And Ginny writes them for a living, you know, Hermione."

"I know that, Ronald, I'm not trying to insult Ginny…"

"I'm joking, love."

Hugo rolled his eyes and whispered to Rose, "Merlin, I'm glad you're not leaving me alone with them again."

"You were with Lily," Rose reminded him.

"Lily was in her room with books or playing with Lorcan all the time," he muttered.

"True."

When they arrived at King's Cross, immediately they heard Lily's voice shrieking at her brothers from somewhere else in the car park. "But I don't even _want_ to be in Gryffindor!"

"Oh, Lord, here we go," Rose's mum sighed, shaking her head, and Hugo ran right up to his cousin.

"Why wouldn't you want to be in Gryffindor? It's the best! Everyone's in Gryffindor!"

" _Exactly!_ " Lily exclaimed, glaring at James, who smiled back.

"Oh," Hugo said, nodding. "Right. Well, if you're not in Gryffindor, I'll… we could go on walks or something. Or you could join chess club with me!"

"But I always beat you."

"Well, I could still beat you someday!"

"Hey, Rosie, isn't it great they're at Hogwarts this year?" James asked. He was smiling, but it looked more like he was in pain.

"Oh, definitely," Rose said, rolling her eyes.

"Be nice to your brother, please," her mother sighed as they walked towards the barrier.

"I will, Mum," Rose sighed.

"Is Scorpius here yet?" Al asked as they ran for the platform. Rose shrugged, and they emerged on Platform 9 3/4 as the whistle blew as a warning. Lily and James followed with their parents and finally Hugo and Rose's parents. Her mom walked up to her and smiled.

"Got everything? Hogsmeade slip? Your broomstick?"

"Yes, Mum," she said, smiling. She tugged slightly on the chain of the Time Turner around her neck, hidden for the most part underneath her jumper. Her mom hugged her and Rose saw Scorpius come through the barrier with Luna, who waved. "Bye, Mum. I'll write."

"Look after Hugo. And try not to get him mixed up in anything," her mum told her sternly. She nodded, smiling.

Ginny seemed to overhear them and said, "Same to you, James. Keep Lily out of your mischief."

"I will, Mum, I'm the responsible Prefect now, remember?" James snickered. After a stern look from his mother, he said, "I know, I know, I won't get her killed, I promise."

Rose hugged her mother again and started for the door of the train. "Have a good term, love!" she called.

Rose stood in the doorway and watched her father help Hugo up, saying, "Remember, if you're in Slytherin just don't tell me, I don't want to know."

"Dad," Hugo groaned, and their father smiled.

"Have fun, guys. See you at Christmas. Remember, you do actually have to come home this time, with the wedding and all."

"Bye, Dad," Rose said as the whistle blew again. "Come on, Hugo, let's go find the others." They ventured into the train and after some searching, found Al, Lily, Roxanne, Emma, and Scorpius.

"Where's James?" Rose asked as they sat down.

"Prefect's meeting," Roxanne said, rolling her eyes. "Molly came round looking a minute or so ago. Twat. How he got picked, who knows."

"Now Molly as Head Girl, that's not a surprise at all," Al said.

"You've got that right," Rose muttered, sitting down next to Scorpius. Hugo sat next to her and after a while, started asking so many questions about Hogwarts that Rose seriously contemplated pretending to be asleep more than once before they reached the castle. The carriages pulled by invisible creatures and the first year boats prompted another whole round of questions, and Rose was extremely grateful when he had to go cross the lake with Hagrid.

When they entered the Entrance Hall, Rose noticed that there was a good amount of people staring at their group. "Er, what's going on?" she asked. She was used to some staring, being Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley's daughter and all, but this seemed like an abnormal number of people.

"Scorp!" a very high-pitched, unfortunately familiar voice shouted from the other end of the room.

Lexa Rae came beelining for them and Al muttered, "Oh, no," and he, Roxanne and Emma made a quick escape into the Great Hall. Lexa shot a glare at Rose when she reached them and turned to Scorpius, instantly looking concerned.

"I heard you left Malfoy Manor," she said. "You could still go back, you know. Just because you made one mistake—"

"It wasn't a mistake, Lexa, leave me alone," he muttered.

"You can't be serious. You're throwing away so much and you don't even care—"

"No, not really. Could you please go… I don't know, somewhere else."

She huffed indignantly and rolled her eyes. "You're kind of an idiot, you know? I can't believe you." She stomped away and Scorpius sighed loudly in relief.

"Maybe she'll stop talking to me," he said hopefully. Rose noticed that Professor McGonagall was walking towards her and hushed Scorpius as she reached the two of them.

"Mr. Malfoy," she said, "it's come to my intention that the… additional funding from your grandfather has ceased."

"Yes, ma'am, though if you ask him at this point, I'm not exactly his grandson anymore," Scorpius said pointedly, and she nodded slowly.

"I see. Well, I seem to have… no choice," she said, and smiled a little bit, "but to return you to your originally assigned housing situation."

Scorpius grinned. "Really, Professor?"

"Yes. I believe Professor Rudomin has extra Gryffindor uniforms if you should require them." She turned to Rose. "Oh, and welcome back to Hogwarts, Miss Weasley."

"Thank you, Professor! Come on, Rose," Scorpius said, and they left quickly for the Feast.

When they arrived at the Gryffindor table, they found James, Roxanne, and Harry betting on Hugo and Lily's Houses. "Five Galleons says Hugo's a Hufflepuff," James snickered. They all looked up as Scorpius sat down next to Rose. Rose gave them a look and Roxanne nodded.

"Er, hey, Malfoy," she said, as casually as she could probably manage. "New House?"

"Back to my old one, actually," he said. "My—er, the Malfoys stopped bribing the school."

Roxanne grinned. "Right."

The first years entered with Flitwick and the noise in the Hall quieted considerably. The Sorting began not long after that. Rose didn't pay quite as much attention as last year, but some names did catch her ears.

"Creevey, Colin." She watched as Benjamin's younger brother became a very quick Gryffindor and one of the several teenage ghosts that sat in the corners looked more proud than anyone else in the whole room. "Goyle, Vincent," was a Slytherin like his brother, and the very public trial of his father last month made for much gossip about his Sorting. "Jordan, Jenna," was called, and Rose turned to Al, confused.

"I thought Alana said she had a brother," she whispered to Al.

"She does. His name's Tyler," Al said plainly, and Rose heard Gryffindor being called almost instantly. Alana cheered from a few seats down and waved at Rose.

Rose leaned down the table and whispered, "Your brother, right?"

Alana nodded. "Yeah. Mum didn't take it well, so he had to get the girl uniform. He's planning to talk to Rudomin." Rose nodded, finally understanding, and clapped as Tyler hurried to where Alana was sitting.

"Potter, Lily." Lily walked up to the Hat and it seemed to take a few minutes, before calling out, "Ravenclaw!" Lily grinned and skipped down to the Ravenclaw table, running right for Lucy, and James and Al cheered loudly with the House. A couple Muggleborns joined Hufflepuff and Gryffindor before Flitwick called, "Weasley, Hugo."

Rose watched her brother walk quickly up to the Hat, looking around nervously at the Hall. She watched his relief when the Hat only took a few seconds before saying, "Gryffindor!" Their whole House cheered and Hugo hurried over to sit next to her and Scorpius. McGonagall approached the podium as they finished their meals and the room eventually quieted down.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," she told them. "I wish you all the best for the start of this term. A few changes have come to the school over the break. First of all, I would like to welcome Mr. Cepheus Barton, our new Potions master." Polite clapping came from most of the Houses, and quieted quickly. "In addition to this, a few security measures have been put into place. Due to recent events, there will now be two Aurors stationed in the school for our protection. There will also be routine searches put into place when leaving and returning to the school from Hogsmeade."

"That seems a bit much," Rose whispered. "Aurors?"

Al shrugged. "It'll probably be helpful if… something else happens."

"Yeah, but we won't have any fun," James complained. "Forget sneaking out."

"That didn't exactly end well last term," Al muttered.

"These measures will no doubt ensure the safety of the school so education can remain the priority," McGonagall said, "and I expect all of you to follow these procedures to ensure a safe term for all. For now, you are all dismissed, and term will begin tomorrow morning. Prefects, please lead the first years up to your Houses."

"That's me," James groaned, standing up, and along with a blonde girl at the end of the table, started shouting, "First years, follow me!" Rose, Al, and Scorpius followed James and the first years up to the tower, and watched as he said, sounding frankly a little bored, "Girls on the left, boys on the right." Hugo rushed up the boys' staircase with Tyler, waving to Rose. Tyler came back down a little while later, looking annoyed.

"Er, James Potter, right?" he asked, and James nodded. "I'm Tyler Jordan, my trunk isn't in my room. And there's no bed."

James looked at him, confused, and then said, "Oh, you're Jenna, right?"

"Tyler," he said, immediately glaring up at him until he backed up a little and nodded.

"Right, well, I think you should talk to Professor Rudomin, he's Head of House, but I, er, I think you should just go up to the… girls' dorm for the night at least."

Tyler stomped away and started up the girls' stairs. Almost immediately, the stairs turned into the slide and he fell to the bottom. "What…?" he asked breathlessly.

"Boys can't go up the girls' stairs," Alana said smugly from the corner. James nodded and looked around helplessly. Rudomin entered the portrait hole and Tyler ran right to him.

"Professor Rudomin? My stuff ended up in the girls' room by mistake," he said, shooting a glare back at James. "Also, I was wondering if you had any boy uniforms?"

Rudomin nodded. "Sure, let's go into my office, I'll get the elves to move your luggage." They left, and Rose looked around and saw Dylan approaching Scorpius.

"Hey, er, Malfoy," he said quietly.

"Dylan," Scorpius said coolly.

"I heard what you did… er, I just wanted to say sorry. You're… not really who I thought you were," he said. "Truce?" He held out his hand, and Scorpius shook it. "Well… see you two in class." He walked off quickly and Scorpius smiled at Rose.

"I think I like this year so far."


	5. The First Divination Class

**Hey everyone! Thanks so much for reading, I hope you like the chapter! -Kelly**

CHAPTER FIVE

THE FIRST DIVINATION CLASS

Rose woke up the next morning first of her dorm, for probably the first time. She got dressed quickly and grabbed her bag from inside her trunk, and went down to the common room, where Al and Scorpius were sitting. "You're up early," Al remarked. "We thought we'd have to wait for at least another half hour."

Scorpius smiled. "Nah, she's just so excited for classes, aren't you?"

"Actually, yes," she said, rolling her eyes. "Do we still get our schedules at breakfast? They're all different now."

"I think we have to go somewhere," Al said. "The library?"

"You go to your Head's office," Fred said from the other side of the room. "So Rudomin's, on the ground floor."

"Oh, thanks," Al said. "Well, let's go. I'm starving."

"What about Hugo? Do you think I should wait for him? I don't want him to not have anyone to sit with," Rose said.

"Pretty sure he's already best friends with Tyler Jordan and Colin Creevey, he'll be fine," Scorpius told her. They left through the portrait hole and got their schedules. Rose looked at hers and almost laughed a little when she saw her extra class was written in with tiny scrawled handwriting.

ROSE WEASLEY THIRD YEAR SCHEDULE

MONDAY, WEDNESDAY: 10:00—Defence Against the Dark Arts, 11:00—Divination and Study of Ancient Runes, 1:00—Charms, 2:00—History of Magic, 3:00—Transfiguration, 4:00—Muggle Studies

TUESDAY: 10:00—Double Potions, 1:00—Arithmancy _,_ 2:00—Herbology, 3:00—Charms, 4:00—History of Magic

THURSDAY: 10:00—Arithmancy, 11:00—Herbology, 1:00—Potions, 2:00—Divination and Study of Ancient Runes, 3:00—Double Transfiguration

FRIDAY: 10:00—Herbology, 11:00—Potions, 1:00—Muggle Studies, 2:00—Arithmancy, 3:00—Defence Against the Dark Arts, 11:00—Astronomy

GRYFFINDOR QUIDDITCH TRYOUTS SEPTEMBER 5 7:30-9:00 p.m.

"Miss Weasley?" Rudomin said as they started to leave the office. Scorpius and Al left to wait outside and Rose walked back to the professor's desk.

"Yes, Professor?"

"Professor McGonagall wanted me to tell you that to handle your schedule… deviation you should go to the first class, then use the Time Turner and go to the other class by a different route. Be careful not to cross your own path; you may be expecting it but I suspect your friends will… not."

Rose nodded. "Right. Thank you, Professor," she said, and left the office quickly.

"What was that?" Scorpius asked. Rose shrugged.

"Nothing. Let's get breakfast."

"Please," Al added with feeling, and they headed for the Great Hall.

After breakfast that morning, Hugo stopped Rose on her way to Defence. "Where's Charms?" he sighed. "Er, it's on the third floor, down the west hallway—there's a trick stair on the first staircase, number 17."

"Thanks!" he called as he ran off, and Al sighed.

"Glad Lily's in a different house," he said. "I could never handle… that. All the time."

"You were the same way, Al," James said from the table. He hopped off the bench and walked over to them. "But Lily's probably stalking Lucy instead, lucky for us. I've got Divination now, though, see you later. Do you know when Lucy's calling the first meeting yet?"

"I don't know, she hasn't talked to me. I can find out today," Rose called after him as he ran down the other hallway and climbed the staircase out of their vision. "Goodbye," she muttered.

"When do we have Divination?" Al asked.

"After Defence. Let's go," she said, and they set off. When they arrived at the classroom, everyone already there was talking and arguing, and Rose looked at Al and Scorpius in alarm. They shrugged, and Rose saw Devon nearby and waved him over.

"Hey, guys," he said.

"Hi, Devon. Do you know what they're talking about?" she asked.

He nodded quickly. "Yeah, the rumor is there's a Muggle teacher this year. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but that's what they're saying."

"A Muggle teacher? Really?" Scorpius asked. "But they can't see Hogwarts, Devon."

He shrugged. "It's just gossip."

"Could everyone take their seats, please?" Rudomin called from the back of the class. Rose and Scorpius hurried to the front of the room and sat down quickly. The rest of the students eventually quieted down and sat down. "Thank you. Now, I'm sure most of you have a lot of questions about the changes to the school policies, and I've been instructed to answer them in class. Does anyone have any specific—?" About half of the room's hands shot up, including Rose's. He nodded slowly and looked around. "Er—Miss Rae?"

"Is it true that the new Muggle Studies professor is a Muggle?" she asked with a distinct tone of disgust.

Rudomin looked surprised. "That's…not what I meant by questions, Miss Rae, and I'm not going to answer that. Does anyone have any questions about the security matters?"

Rose reached her hand up as far as it could go and he finally saw her, and nodded. "Miss Weasley?"

"How does the Auror guard work? And who's stationed here?"

"Well, there are always two guards on duty, in three shifts. They stay in Hogsmeade when they aren't working, and the assignments are a month long, before they bring in different Aurors. Does that answer your question?"

"Well, which Aurors are there?"

"I think the names of the ones on duty are Bones and Savage," Rudomin said. "I'm not sure about the other shifts."

Min tapped Rose on the shoulder from behind her and said, "Savage was in the second War. Not sure about Bones, though."

Rudomin answered another question, this time from a Slytherin girl in the back. "How long are they going to be here?"

"We're not sure yet," he admitted. "Does anyone else have questions?" Nearly a dozen hands shot up and Rudomin sighed. Nothing of consequence was actually taught that day, and Rose was a little bitter by the end of the day, as there was much he wasn't even allowed to tell them.

"It's for our own good, so they say, so why won't they tell us who authorized it? Or how long they'll be here? And what about the searches on the Hogsmeade trips?" Rose asked as they climbed up to the tower to the Divination classroom.

"I don't know," Al sighed. "How do you think I feel? My dad's head of the Auror department. You'd think he'd have told me about this."

"Maybe he wasn't allowed," Scorpius said. "It seems like they're keeping it pretty quiet."

"You don't need to keep things quiet from the people you're protecting!" Rose insisted.

"Talk to Lucy about it," Al grumbled. "I'm sure she's just as angry as you are. Me, I'd rather just go to class." He trudged ahead of them, looking annoyed, and Rose turned to Scorpius. He shook his head.

"Don't let him get to you, he's secretly angry too," he said, and Rose sighed.

"Whatever," she mumbled. They opened the door to what they were expecting to be the Divination room. Instead, they found a small chamber full of about twenty students of all Houses milling about with a large ladder in the middle of the room, leading to a closed trap door in the ceiling. "What on Earth…?"

"I can't believe you convinced me to take this class," Min muttered to Al. "Oi!" she shouted, and the room fell silent. "Has anyone seen the bloody professor?"

The general response was a confused 'No', and the room proceeded to argue amongst themselves about what to do until about ten minutes later, when the trap door finally opened. A woman with extremely large glasses that magnified her eyes greatly, dressed in somewhat eclectic attire that seemed rather outdated, peered down at their class curiously. "Welcome to Divination!" she proclaimed dramatically, and moved away from the entrance before gesturing for the students to begin climbing the ladder. Rose rolled her eyes and climbed up after Min and Al, looking back at Scorpius skeptically. When they entered the room, there were several circular tables covered in long tablecloths. Rose and Scorpius joined Al and Min at their table and the professor addressed the room. "I am Professor Sybill Trelawney, descendant of the famed Seer Cassandra Trelawney herself. I am here to show you how to use any latent gifts you may possess to uncloud the the treacherous path of your future. Some of you may simply not possess the Eye, and for those that do not I am sorry to say that I cannot teach you a natural gift. However, you may be able to progress slightly through the energies of those around you."

"Remind me why we signed up for this," Rose muttered to Scorpius. Trelawney turned around and stared directly at her. Rose refused to be intimidated by this woman and stared back at her evenly.

"Dear, was there something you wanted to tell me?"

Rose tried to stop herself from rolling her eyes and said, "No, Professor."

"I sense a good deal of skepticism coming from you, my dear," she said. "What is your name?"

"Rose Weasley, Professor."

Trelawney's eyes widened. "Of course. I knew your parents… neither of them had much of a gift. Especially not your mother. I'll try to teach you the best I can, dear." Rose turned to Scorpius in disbelief and Trelawney returned to the center of the classroom. "Now," she said, "would you all pick up the teacups on your table and drink; afterwards we will read the tea leaves." Rose sighed and started drinking the tea.

"She's definitely… interesting," Scorpius chuckled.

"This was a complete waste of time," Rose moaned. When they finished their tea, Trelawney told them to switch cups with someone. Rose gave hers to Al and started looking in the textbook. "Al, er, yours looks like a square, so I'm gonna go with gate. So that either means a new opportunity or imprisonment." She sighed. "The same symbol means both? That's so flawed, no matter what happens you could say it was the tea leaves, they're complete opposites!"

"I sense a dark force coming from this table!" Trelawney suddenly said, turning quickly to face their table. She walked directly up to Al and grabbed the cup from him. "Whose cup is this, dear?"

"Rose's," Al said nervously. "Er, I was thinking it was an animal or something…"

"It's the Grim!" she shrieked, and set the cup back down on the table. She turned to Rose and said, "I'm so sorry, my dear… the Grim is a symbol of great misfortune, even… death."

The rest of the class passed in a tense silence throughout the entire classroom. As soon as the class was over, Rose got up and walked as quickly as she could back to the ladder. "Rose, wait!" Scorpius called, and Rose stopped by the door outside impatiently. "I'm sure she's just full of it," he told her as he climbed down the ladder.

"I know, I just… I've got to get to class," she said.

"What? It's lunchtime," Scorpius said, and Rose shook her head.

"Er, I'll meet you there, I just… I'm going to the bathroom." She ran out before he could say anything else and ducked into the nearest bathroom she could find. Once inside the stall, she took out the Time Turner and turned it once. The room seemed to move in reverse and Rose felt a little dizzy. When she left the stall, there were two people in the bathroom that definitely hadn't been before, and when she walked out she had to hide behind a statue when she saw herself, Min, Al and Scorpius walking up to the Divination room. "Wow…" she whispered to herself. Knowing that she had just seen pretty much the weirdest thing she'd ever seen in her life, she ran towards the South corridor and into the Ancient Runes classroom.

She saw Ana and Declan in the corner and sat down in a seat next to them. "Hi, Rose," Declan said cheerfully, then looked puzzled. "Hey, didn't I just see you with Al and Scorpius?"

"Er, yeah, just a mixup. We thought we had Charms," she explained, and realized the Time Turner was still visible. When the teacher entered the room, she discreetly tucked it back into her shirt and could finally breathe. She spent most of the first Runes class thinking about Divination; she knew it was probably nonsense, but she couldn't help but worry a little about being given an omen of death. After class ended, Rose rushed out and made it back into the bathroom, walked out again after a few minutes and saw Scorpius, Al and Min waiting.

"You okay?" Al asked anxiously.

Rose nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "It's nothing. Let's go to lunch."


	6. Ghosts in the Forest

**Hi everyone! Thanks so much for reading, I hope you like the chapter! Reviews are awesome, I love to hear from you! -Kelly**

CHAPTER SIX

GHOSTS IN THE FOREST

Later that day, the gossip about the new Muggle Studies professor had only gotten worse by the time Rose, Al and Scorpius reached the class for the final period of the day. The desks were all individual in rows and columns and Al, Rose, and Scorpius took a cluster of three towards the middle. To their surprise, they saw Devon sitting a few desks away and Rose smiled at him. "Hey," he said sheepishly. "Er, I just figured if I wanted to join your group I should…"

"No, that's great," Rose said quickly. "And I'll let you know about the first meeting soon."

"Sure," he said. "I… thought with Scorpius I wouldn't be the only Slytherin, but…" Rose looked around and realized that Devon was in fact the only Slytherin in the room. The majority was split between Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. After a few minutes, the room quieted down as a woman Rose hadn't seen before walked into the room, wheeling in a cart of books. She set the cart against the wall, and turned to face the class. She seemed nice enough, Rose thought, and smiled at all of them before starting to talk.

"Hello, everyone, I'm Professor Creevey. Some of you might know my sons, though they're a bit younger than you—you're the third years?" Some nodded and she smiled again. "Welcome to Muggle Studies! As you may know, the curriculum has been changed just in time for you to enter the program, as we'll be focusing on more practical studies rather than the objective view taken previously. Professor McGonagall felt with the last teacher's resignation that it would be a good time to teach the class from a more personal, hands-on point of view."

Scorpius nudged Rose. "So she is a Muggle?" he whispered. Rose shrugged and raised her hand.

"What's your name, dear?" she asked.

"Rose Weasley, Professor."

"Nice to meet you, Rose. What's your question?"

"I hope it's not rude… it's just that everyone's been talking about it, Professor, and I was just wondering… are you a Muggle?" she asked, feeling her ears growing hot as she spoke. Professor Creevey smiled.

"No, not quite. My family are all magical, but I'm not. I was raised in the wizarding world, but I never went to Hogwarts, and I went on to lead a Muggle life; I taught English and Art at a Muggle primary school until now. Muggles can't find their way to Hogwarts, I'm afraid, it's proofed against them, so I'm the closest to a Muggle they could do. I suppose it's helpful to the course, though, since I've lived in both worlds. Well, now that that's settled, let's get started." Professor Creevey rolled the cart into the center of the room. "If you all would pick up a book from the cart, that'd be wonderful." Rose walked up along with the rest of the class and picked up one of the books, _Electricity and How it Works_. It was clearly a Muggle book, as Rose flipped through it and saw no wizard terminology at all. "I know you all have textbooks, but we're going to be using these first in order to have a basic understanding of technology before we begin. We'll spend about a month or so on electricity and then go from there. Turn to page 1, please." Rose opened the book and looked around at the classroom, full of people whispering and looking at their friends, confused.

"I'm going to fail this class, I've barely ever seen a phone," Scorpius groaned. Rose smirked.

"Too bad, Malfoy, don't think you can handle it? I bet you could drop out."

"Shove off," he muttered and she giggled a little. This was going to be fun.

The next day Lucy stopped Rose in the hallway on her way to History of Magic and said, "We're changing the meeting day. Thursdays instead. There's Quidditch on Tuesdays now, Ravenclaw changed the practice times. Can you put this up in Gryffindor?" She handed her a flyer pretty similar to the ones used last year, without any reference to the attacks.

"Sure," Rose said. "Do you have anyone in Slytherin? Scorpius is back in Gryffindor."

"Oh. Really?" Lucy said. "Okay, er…do you know anyone? I still don't know if Grace and Alex are coming back."

"Devon Goyle," Rose said. Lucy wrinkled her nose.

"Didn't his dad just get sent to Azkaban?"

"Yeah, and my mum put him there, who cares? He's not his dad, and he wants to join."

"All right, Rose, sure. Give this to him," she said, holding out another flyer. "See you later."

That night, Rose was sitting in the back of the library, getting for the first time a sense of just how much work she had taken on. She only took one more extra class, she knew, but Runes was definitely a lot of work, and Divination was nothing to do with anything intellectual, just took up time. She knew she had been there for a while, but she had no idea just how long until James and Roxanne found her and jerked her book out of her hands. "Come on, Rosie, it's been hours, we've got something fun for you to do."

"What? It hasn't been… hours," she protested, and James shook his head.

"Yeah it has, actually. Come on. We're going."

"Where?" she asked, though she supposed she was going, as she was already putting her books back into her bag.

"The Forest," Roxanne explained as they left the library and started down the stairs toward the entrance hall. "We had an idea."

"That cave," James said. "No one's using it."

"We were just going to make it a Marauders thing but we figured we'd open it to…anyone we knew," Roxanne said. "You're welcome."

"So a clubhouse?" Rose asked. "Why?"

"Because… I don't know. It's out of the way, no one would think of it, and besides, it's still got those Runes that probably mean horrible things and I want to make it something… better," James admitted.

Rose sighed. "All right, fine."

"Excellent," James said. They emerged into the entrance hall and found Al, Harry and Fred waiting.

"You got her out of the library, impressive," Harry said. "Come on, let's go."

"Wait, there are Aurors now, right?" Fred asked. "How are we going to get past them?"

James groaned. "Er… Al, give me your Cloak." Al did and James threw it over himself, as well as Rose and Roxanne. "Just trust me," he whispered to them, and told Fred, "Go."

When they opened the doors, they were met with the two rather intimidating Aurors standing outside. The woman came up to them, while the man stayed at their post. "Where are you all going?"

"To see Hagrid," Fred said casually, "you know, the gamekeeper."

The woman looked down at the Hut and Rose was relieved to see Hagrid was sitting on his porch and saw them, and started to wave. "All right," she said, and they left quickly.

"That was dreadful, is that going to happen every time?" Roxanne groaned.

"Al, we'll be needing your Cloak quite a bit this year," James muttered.

"Well, hello!" Hagrid greeted them. "This is a surprise!"

"Hi, Hagrid," Al said, and James nudged Rose.

"Come on," he whispered, and they ran into the Forest before pulling off the Cloak. "All right," he said cheerfully. "That went well. All we need to do is get back into the castle when we're done."

"Do they lock the doors now?" Roxanne asked.

"Er, yeah, but not till ten. We've got… two hours."

"It's eight?" Rose asked, shocked. "I missed dinner?"

James shook his head. "Yeah. You're definitely… dedicated. All right, cave. Come on." When they reached the cave, James took a look at the wall of runes and pulled out his wand. " _Scourgify_ ," he said, pointing at the wall, and the runes painted on the wall seemed to scrub themselves out. The one rune that remained was the one etched into the wall, the one Rose still couldn't figure out the meaning of.

"What even is that?" Roxanne asked. "Rose?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I looked through some books over the summer, but I didn't have anywhere near the Hogwarts library resources."

"We could start looking," James offered. "We could maybe get the Modernists on it."

Rose shook her head. "It might be nothing. I don't want to worry people. McGonagall said she didn't know what it was either. Maybe it was just some symbol they made up."

"We can cover it with a banner or something, James," Roxanne said. "Like a lion?"

"Yeah, maybe," James said.

"Maybe it's an old symbol," Rose said. "Maybe some of the ghosts know?"

"I think some of the ghosts hang out somewhere around here," James said. "Let's go, I know a place."

Rose and Roxanne followed James out of the cave. "Do you know what he's on about?" Roxanne whispered. Rose shook her head and Roxanne shrugged. They followed him into the Forest for a few minutes, until they reached a large clearing. Rose looked around and saw a few of the teenage ghosts sitting on a large stone, talking. She didn't know what it was about the place, but it gave her a weird feeling. The tall trees seemed to be leaning over the clearing, giving it a darker feel than most open parts of the Forest. She wasn't sure she exactly liked the clearing, and tried to focus on the ghosts. James walked up first and waved when they sat down.

"Hey, James," one of them said.

"You know them?" Roxanne asked.

James scoffed. "I know everyone, Weasley, I'm very popular." Roxanne snorted and James turned back to the ghost. "Hi, Lavender. These are my cousins Rose and Roxanne."

The ghost he called Lavender looked at them eagerly. "You're Weasleys, aren't you?" They nodded, a little confused, and she smiled a little shyly. "Er, is either of you Ron Weasley's daughter?"

"I am," Rose said, curious, and Lavender's eyes widened.

"Really? Could you tell him I said hi? Lavender Brown? …Who's your mother?"

"Er, Hermione Granger?" Rose said, a little confused, and Lavender raised an eyebrow.

"…Really? Great," she sighed. "Well… tell him anyway, okay?"

"Okay…" Rose said.

"Oh, and uh, whose…?" she asked Roxanne.

"George Weasley. And Angelina Johnson," she said, and Lavender smiled.

"Oh, good, I always thought they were good together! …Oh, and… I know about Fred, you know, but he's not… he went on, I'm sorry."

"Oh," Roxanne said. "Right. Er, my brother's named Fred…"

"Really? That's so sweet—" Lavender began, and a boy behind her put a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, Lavender? I think they're here about something else. What do you need, James?" the boy asked.

"Do you know what this symbol is?" James asked. Rose took out a piece of spare parchment and sketched it quickly. When she held it up, they just looked confused.

"Never seen it," Lavender said.

"Er, I think I've seen it, but… it's Dark, I think, but… yeah, I don't know. Sorry," he said.

"That's okay," James said, "we were just wondering."

"James? I can see them leaving Hagrid's, do you want to sneak in behind them before they close the doors?" Roxanne said, glancing at the edge of the trees. James sighed.

"We've got to go. Thanks, though," he said, and they stood up to go. James and Roxanne ran down the path, but Rose stopped a little to look back up at the ghosts. She wondered how exactly Lavender knew her dad, and it distracted her enough that she managed to trip over a tree root a little ways down the path from the clearing. When she stood up, wiping the dirt off her robe, something stuck in the path caught her eye. She thought she must have uncovered it when she fell, and she stooped down to pick it up. It was a small, black stone, possibly of some kind of precious material, though it was covered in dirt and the edges worn away. She shrugged and put it in her pocket, and ran after Roxanne and James out of the Forest.


	7. The Quidditch Tryouts

**Hi everyone! Sorry it took so long for this chapter, but another one should be coming soon, maybe even tomorrow. I hope you enjoy the chapter, and please review, I love hearing from you! Thanks! -Kelly**

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE QUIDDITCH TRYOUTS

The first Modernist meeting of the year went rather smoothly, and Lucy seemed a little hesitant to talk about the events of last year, probably not wanting to scare the first years. Rose wasn't really paying attention, because the next day were the Quidditch tryouts, and she could hardly think about anything else. She was worried she wouldn't make the team, because even though she had last year, she hadn't the year before and that had shaken her confidence in her flying abilities considerably. Despite Al's constant assurance that she would make it, she had worked herself into near-panic by the time she reached the pitch that Friday evening. There was, however, a surprise waiting when they arrived. Her brother was standing in the group of hopefuls, looking incredibly tiny in comparison.

"What's Hugo doing here?" Al asked.

Rose sighed. "I don't know," she said, and walked quickly over to her brother. "Hugo, what are you doing?"

He smiled nervously. "Trying out," he said, shrugging. "Why not?""You don't play Quidditch," she said.

"Well, you all do, and I don't want to be left out," he said.

"It's not—Hugo, look, everyone here is a lot bigger than you, maybe you shouldn't do this."

"I can try out if I want to," he said, looking annoyed now, and Rose looked back at Al and Scorpius for help.

"He's right," Scorpius said. "I mean… he can if he wants."

"All right, everyone! My name is Tom Wood, welcome to Quidditch tryouts!" he said. "I can tell this is going to be a great year, so er, let's start with the Chasers. The rest of you can wait in the stands." Hugo didn't step forward with Rose and Scorpius and she looked at him, surprised again.

"What are you going for?" she asked him.

"Beater," he said. Her eyes widened and Scorpius pulled her onto the pitch before she could say any more.

"He's going to get killed," she moaned as Wood explained the rules of the tryout. Whatever worries she had, though, she forgot about them once she started flying. During the speed test, she felt on top of the world, and did pretty well from what she could tell. She had missed flying over the summer; the small pitch drawn in the field behind the Burrow wasn't quite the same. She was also proud of herself for finishing four seconds before Scorpius, which made him considerably annoyed. She thought she was doing well at the other parts of the tryout as well, and despite being irritated at Hugo, she smiled when she heard his embarrassingly loud cheering. Wood landed first and congratulated them as they walked off the field.

"Nice job, Malfoy. Glad you're back in Gryffindor, I saw you last season. You're a natural," Tom told Scorpius, who then turned to Rose smugly.

"Sounds like I made it. Did you?"

"I did better than you!" she complained, and they walked up to sit in the stands next to Al and Hugo.

"Who's here for Seeker tryouts?" Tom asked, and Al raised his hand. Rose looked around and was amused to see that no one had even bothered to show up to compete with Al, and Tom shrugged. "All right, well, welcome back to the team, Al." A few people chuckled and Al put his hand down quickly, going a bit red. "How about Beaters, then?"

"Be careful," Rose whispered to Hugo as he stood up and made his way down to the pitch with Fred, Harry, and a massive seventh year boy. James turned around from where he sat next to Alice looking alarmed.

"Is Hugo really going for Beater?"

"Yep," Rose groaned. "If he dies, my parents will kill me…"

"Since when does he play Quidditch?"

"Since now," Al said grimly.

"Merlin. How many broken bones do you think?"

"Two," Al said.

"Nah, at least three," Scorpius chuckled.

"I heard you can break up to 33 bones just in your arm so… my money's on that happening," James said.

"I hate you all," Rose muttered. The Beater candidates rose up into the air and Tom took out the Bludgers. Hugo's bat looked about as large as his entire head and torso, and Rose winced as the first Bludger flew past him by an inch or two. To her surprise, he actually did manage to hit a couple out of the way, but the third one aimed for him hit him in the gut and he doubled over, his broom rocketing towards the field. He managed to right himself a little, but it was too late to stop, only minimize the damage, and he skidded to a halt after tumbling off the broom on the pitch, clutching his arm.

"Told you," James snorted and Tom ran onto the pitch, the other Beaters flying back down to the ground. Fred picked him up and offered to take him to the hospital wing, and Tom nodded. Rose sighed and stood up to leave. Scorpius and Al stood up with her, and she stopped and turned to them.

"You can come, but only if it's not just to see who's right about how many bones."

"We were just kidding," Al mumbled, and she sighed.

"Come on." They walked quickly out of the tryouts as James and a few other boys walked down for the Keeper tryouts. As they walked up the path, they began to hear people approaching them and Scorpius groaned.

"Brilliant," he muttered, "just brilliant."

"What?" Rose asked, and then she started to make out what the group of students were saying.

"Did you see him? He was in Beater padding, you've got to be joking. He was the scrawniest Beater I ever saw. I guess that's what you look like when you're underfed your whole life, though." Rose saw that the students were Slytherins, and that the boy talking was Ajax Rosier. The students around him laughed, and at that moment Rosier seemed to see them.

"Hey, Weasley! If your brother dies, will you finally get to sleep in your own bed?" he shouted, and Rose rolled her eyes.

"Just ignore them," Al said quietly, but Scorpius was not about to ignore them.

"Shove off, Rosier," he muttered, and the group laughed and ignored him.

"What's wrong, Weasley? Don't want to talk to me? Didn't your Mudblood mother ever teach you manners?" he asked, and Rose felt her ears going red.

"Don't talk to her like that," Scorpius said, louder than before, and Rosier looked around at his friends.

"Ooh, I'm scared, Malfoy," he said.

"Do we still call him Malfoy?" Anna MacDougal asked Rosier, feigning innocence rather mockingly. "I mean, he obviously doesn't want to be a Malfoy anymore."

"Aunt Astoria told my mum that he took the elf, too," Ben Burke snickered, and the group burst out in laughter.

"He's even worse than a Mugglelover," Acantha Carrow sneered.

"Yeah, really Malfoy, you're as stupid as it gets," Rosier said, shaking his head. "Throwing everything away like that. You know, we could have been friends. Shame."

"Yeah, what a shame," Scorpius muttered, rolling his eyes.

"I'd watch your back if I were you," Rosier said quietly, and for the first time Rose noticed that his wand was gripped firmly in his right hand. She felt a little scared for Scorpius, considering Rosier's track record, but Scorpius just laughed.

"I'll keep that in mind," he said, with about as much sarcasm as possible.

Rosier smirked a little and said, "Blood traitor. Let's go, guys." He turned to Rose and said, "Be careful this year with all that Modernist stuff. It'd be a pity if something happened. Your boyfriend won't always be there, you know." The Slytherins continued down to the Quidditch pitch and Scorpius stomped up to the castle. Al turned to Rose looking nervous.

"Oh, he's all talk, Al," Rose assured him, trying to assure herself at the same time.

"Isn't he the one that stunned you?" Al asked.

Rose didn't know how to positively respond to that so after a few seconds she just said, "Let's catch up with Scorpius." When they reached him, Rose said, "You okay?"

"I'll be fine," he muttered, continuing to stare straight ahead as they approached the main doors.

Rose felt bad for him instantly and said, "Don't let them get to you, you know you're in the right here."

"Yeah, I know," he mumbled. The Auror on duty let them into the castle and they started for the hospital wing.

"Hey, cheer up, Scorpius, at least you basically already know you made the team," Al said, trying quite hard to smile despite his remaining nerves.

Scorpius chuckled. "Says the only Seeker that bothered to show up."

"It's not my fault no one came!" he protested as Rose and Scorpius laughed.

After a few minutes, they reached the hospital wing to find Fred sitting with Hugo, who was now wearing a sling and looking quite embarrassed. He smiled a little when he saw Rose. "Hey," he said. "Guess you were right."

"That was really stupid, Hugo," Al laughed. "Kind of funny, though."

"It's hardly funny, he broke three bones," Mrs. Longbottom said as she brought over what appeared to be some kind of tonic.

"Knew it," Scorpius whispered, and Rose tried very hard not to slap him.

"Maybe stick to chess, Hugo," Rose said, and he nodded, rolling his eyes.

"Can I at least come to your club, Rose? I want to do something," he groaned. Fred looked at Rose nervously and she hesitated. She hadn't had a problem with Hugo joining… until Rosier threatened her. She'd hoped they'd back down after last year, but apparently they hadn't. j

"I don't know, Hugo," she said quietly, and he groaned.

"I'll just ask Lucy, she'll want me to join," Hugo said, grinning smugly.

"She wants everyone to join."

"Exactly. I'll go with Lily."

"Lily joined?" Al asked, looking just as nervous now.

"What's wrong with you lot? It's just a club," Hugo said.

"I hate to do this, but visitors out, he needs to rest," Mrs. Longbottom said, and Fred stood up.

"Just… feel better, Hugo," Fred said, and they all left, Hugo still looking a little confused.

"You can't let him," Fred said as soon as the door was closed. Rose wasn't even planning on letting him, but she also didn't like people telling her what to do, so she crossed her arms indignantly.

"He's my brother, not yours," Rose said. "You're not the one responsible for him."

Fred sighed. "No, I'm not, but you should be careful, that's all." He walked away and Al turned to Rose.

"Lily can't join, she's only 11."

"So were Grace and Alex," Scorpius said, and Rose sighed.

"I know, Scorpius, but… after what Rosier said…"

"Don't let that git tell you what to do," he said. "Come on, let's go wait for the results." Rose tried to be calm as they went down to the Great Hall, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop thinking about that threat.

It was only a few hours later when Tom came into the Great Hall and posted the results of the Gryffindor tryouts that she really cheered up.

GRYFFINDOR: Seeker: Albus Potter, Keeper: James Potter, Beaters: Harry Longbottom, Fred Weasley Chasers: Rose Weasley, Tom Wood, Scorpius Malfoy

"Nice job, Weasley," Scorpius said, grinning, and she smirked.

"Not bad yourself," she conceded, and then saw Hugo walking into the Hall with a cast. "Hugo!" she called, and he hurried over. "I made the team."

"Brilliant," he said, rolling his eyes.

"Sorry to tell you, but… you didn't," Scorpius said, grinning, and Hugo laughed.

"Yeah, bummer," he sighed, grinning. Rose started to look around for James and couldn't help noticing the same Slytherins at the end of the Slytherin table, who seemed to be whispering and glancing at them occasionally. Rose's smile faded and she said quickly, "Come on, Hugo, let's go tell Mum and Dad."

"Can't you do that yourself?" Hugo asked. "I don't want to tell them I broke my arm trying, it's embarrassing."

"Then… tell them you got into Gryffindor, come on," she said, and walked out of the Great Hall quickly, ignoring Scorpius and Al's confusion. She didn't want to think about Rosier or his stupid friends any longer, and though she would never admit it, she had been thinking about them all day. Whatever they had been talking about over there, Rose didn't like it at all.


	8. Owl Post

**Hi everyone! Another chapter today, as promised; please review and I hope you like it! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 8

OWL POST

5-9-2019

Dear Mum and Dad,

Hello from Hugo and I! Hope you're both doing well. Hugo wanted to tell you that he was Sorted into Gryffindor. Also, I made the Quidditch team again. School's going great for both of us, though I have a lot of work this year with all my electives. I'm starting to think that you were right about Divination not really being worth it. The teacher predicted my death on the first day. I'm actually quite good at Ancient Runes, though, and Muggle Studies and Arithmancy are very interesting. Anyway, I hope everyone's well, and that the wedding plans are going well. Also, Dad, do you know why there are Aurors stationed at Hogwarts now? It seems a little excessive, I was just wondering. Tell Gran and Granddad I said hi.

Love,

Rose

8-9-2019

Dear Rose and Hugo,

That's wonderful that you got into Gryffindor, Hugo! We're very proud, especially your father. Also, Rose, congratulations on the Quidditch team. I'm glad you're doing well in school. As for Divination, in my opinion it's frankly a branch of magic that is hardly ever more than a waste of time, and your Uncle Harry would like me to tell you that Professor Trelawney predicted his death when we were in our third year and he is obviously very much alive, so you needn't worry. Dad wanted me to tell you that the Aurors are stationed because of your incident last year, and that they're for your own safety. Honestly, Rose, don't worry about the Aurors; they're trying to protect you, however intrusive you might think it is. The wedding plans are going well, by the way; I haven't been involved much, but from what I've heard it sounds like it'll be a wonderful ceremony. I'm not sure whether Victoire has told you, but she would like you, Min, Lucy, Roxanne and Molly to be her bridesmaids, so though I know you don't really like things like that, please try to be positive and supportive for your cousin. I'm sure James will be just as uncomfortable as you being a groomsman, so you can commiserate with him. Also, they've told me to tell you all that if Emma and Scorpius would like to stay at the Burrow over the holidays and go to the wedding, they're welcome to. One last thing; I was just elected to the Hogwarts Board of Governors, so I may be seeing you a few times this year, and I'll do whatever I can to keep the influence of the board unbiased in any direction. Have fun at school and I'll see you both for Christmas!

Love,

Mum

9-9-2019

Dear Ms. Malfoy,

Hello, it's Rose, like you asked. Scorpius is doing fine; he was put back in Gryffindor at the beginning of the year and he's a lot happier now. He made the Quidditch team, too, and school's going well. He's still not happy with you all, though, so I think it's a bad idea to try to talk to him directly. I'll send another owl in October. If you'd like to reply, that's fine, but it'd be nice if you could use an Owl Post owl as Scorpius might recognize yours.

Rose Weasley

By the middle of October, Rose was beginning to think that she was spending more time in the library than in all her classes combined. She had no idea what she was doing when she had taken four electives; she thought maybe since they were optional classes that they wouldn't be as difficult. She couldn't have been more wrong, however; Ancient Runes and Arithmancy were going to kill her before the year was up, she was sure of it. Coupled with Transfiguration and Potions, and all the classes that were difficult for her made up more than two thirds of her homework. In addition to all her schoolwork, she had Quidditch and research on the rune in the cave.

"Any luck in that book?" Scorpius asked during one of their late night research sessions.

"No, unless you count determining that it's not from any kind of runic alphabet that's ever been written down," she moaned, slamming the book shut and pushing it toward the bookshelf. As it floated away, Scorpius got back up and searched the shelves.

"Er… _Symbols of Old World Magic_?" he suggested, holding out another dusty, large book.

"Fine," she muttered. "Worth a shot, I guess." He handed her the book and slumped back down into his chair.

"Is it some kind of Arithmancy thing? Or a Potions marker? It might not be a rune at all," Scorpius said.

Rose shrugged. "It doesn't really look like a rune. And if we can't find it…"

"That's what I was thinking," he said, nodding. "Only trouble is that'll be much harder to find in a book."

"We know it's a Dark symbol," Rose said. "Maybe we can look through Dark magic books?"

"Those'll be in the Restricted section," Scorpius said. "But we do have Al's cloak."

"We'll have to be there a while," Rose said, shaking her head. "We should just get a pass."

"From who?" Scorpius asked.

Rose sighed. "I don't know."

"Are you all right?" he asked. "You look tired."

"I'm fine. Just been studying a lot," she said, opening the new book. "Maybe it'll be in this one and we won't have to worry about a pass." It wasn't, however, and they spent another hour or so in the library before Madam Pince kicked them out with instructions to go 'straight to Gryffindor Tower, seriously'. Scorpius and Rose walked out of the library and starting heading back.

"I can't believe we can't find it," Scorpius sighed. "Do you think we could make any of the Slytherins from last year tell us?"

Rose sighed. "I doubt they'd tell us anything. It's so frustrating, though, that they know what it is. Can I have the book again?" Scorpius handed her the last book they'd checked out, and she was looking through it again when she walked right into a suit of armor near the staircase and fell down. Scorpius snickered as she got up.

"Shut it, Malfoy," she muttered, and he looked past her, curious.

"What'd you drop?" he asked. "It fell out of your pocket."

"What?" she asked, looking behind her. "Oh, that. I found it in the Forest. I think it's just a rock, I don't know."

"Where'd you find it?" he asked. "It looks… I don't know, weird." He picked it up and started turning it around, looking for something. "Maybe there's something written on it?"

"I can't find anything; it might just be dirty…" Rose said. Suddenly, a ghost seemed to appear out of nowhere. She jumped and Scorpius stared at it. It was an old man in long black robes, and Rose had never seen him before. Scorpius looked shocked, though, and at second glance the man didn't quite look like a ghost. He wasn't really transparent, but there was something a little off about him; he didn't look like he was really there at all. "Do you know him?" Rose asked quietly after a second.

Scorpius handed her back the stone and walked quickly up the staircase. When Scorpius handed the stone to Rose, the man disappeared. "Malfoy, what—?" she began, but he stopped and turned back around.

"That's my grandfather. From my mother's side. He's been dead for six years. I swear it was from that stone, Weasley." He continued to stomp up the stairs then, and Rose hurried to catch up to him.

"So the stone helps you see… ghosts?"

"No, he's not a ghost, he's never been a ghost. He certainly wouldn't have been at Hogwarts. He's American, he went to Salem."

"So… it brings people back?" Rose asked.

Scorpius shrugged. "I don't know. It's creepy, whatever it is. I don't like it, Weasley. You found it in the Forest, didn't you? Maybe it's pretty Dark, too."

Rose shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. I'm going to keep it, though; now I want to find out what it is."

"Get rid of that thing," Scorpius muttered.

"You can't say you aren't curious, Malfoy," she said, and he stopped in front of the Fat Lady and sighed.

"You're right," he admitted. "Let's start research tomorrow."

Rose groaned. "Wonderful. More research. Hinkypunk," she added to the Fat Lady, who swung open to reveal the common room.

"I just don't want to get pulled into some weird Dark magic because you picked up a stone off the ground," Scorpius muttered. Rose sighed.

"Good night," she mumbled sarcastically as she trudged up the stairs to her room.

The next morning, their first Hogsmeade trip was set to begin at 9:00, a little too early to be done with breakfast for Rose's taste. While they waited in the line to be searched, Min was complaining about Victoire and Teddy's wedding. Rose was thinking about how she would get to Owl Post without Scorpius noticing once they arrived; she had to send an owl to Scorpius's mother without using Musetta because she was worried about someone noticing her owl was gone; this correspondence with Ms. Malfoy was making Rose slightly paranoid. She didn't even know why she had agreed to it, but since she had, she didn't want to renege on her promise.

"Rose, are you listening?" Min's voice broke through her thoughts and she blinked.

"Yes—well, no, what?" Rose said, and Min sighed.

"The dresses are pink. With lace sleeves. I don't wear lacy pink. I'm not doing this."

"She's your sister, Min," Rose sighed. "But I might be able to quit…"

"At least you don't have to wear dress robes," Al muttered. "Honestly, who wears those anymore? What's wrong with a bloody suit?"

"Bag," the Auror grunted at Rose, who started, not realizing they had reached the front of the line. She opened the latch on her school bag, and the Auror stuck the wand into her bag, rummaging around a bit before letting her pass.

"This is stupid," Scorpius sighed. "Why would we be smuggling things out of Hogwarts? And wouldn't they want us to take the dangerous stuff out of the building?"

Rose shook her head. "I have a feeling there's something they aren't telling us. They couldn't have just randomly decided to place Aurors here."

When they reached Hogsmeade, they headed for the Three Broomsticks. They entered the pub still discussing the security measures. "I just don't know why they think it's necessary now when it wasn't ever before," Rose said, sliding into the bench next to Al and across from Min and Scorpius.

"It does seem a little odd," Al admitted, and Min looked over to the corner and grinned.

"Guys, look," she said, nodding in the same direction. Rose turned around and rolled her eyes as she saw James sitting in the corner with Stephanie MacMillan. They seemed to be in the middle of quite a lot of snogging, and Al started to make loud gagging noises.

"Are they even coming up for air?" Scorpius asked.

"I don't know, I'm a little concerned," Rose laughed. The door swung open then, allowing a blast of wind into the pub, and Scorpius visibly stiffened when two figures entered. Rose's eyes widened when she realized who had just entered; her mother had walked in and sat down on the other side of the bar with Lucius Malfoy.


	9. The Azkaban Breakout

**Hi everyone! Thanks for reading and please review/follow! I hope you enjoy the chapter! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 9

THE AZKABAN BREAKOUT

"Of all the places I would expect to see him, this would be pretty low on the list," Scorpius said, through gritted teeth, and Rose glanced at Al nervously.

"We can leave if you want to," she said quietly, and he shook his head.

"No, I'm not going to—I'm not letting him ruin my day. Let's just—let's just order."

"Okay," Al said, "but, er… who's going to go to the bar?"

Min sighed. "They're not even there, they're in a booth next to it! At any rate, I'll go, he won't know me, I'm not even ginger." Min walked up to the bar and Al turned to Rose.

"I'd kill to know what they're saying," he confessed.

"They'd see us if we got any closer," Rose said.

Al smiled a little. "I've got my Cloak."

"How did you get it out of the castle?"

"Well, that's the thing, Rose, they can't see it."

"Right, er, okay, I'll go. Do you want to come with me?" she asked him.

Al looked suddenly a little nervous. "Really? You're really… okay. Sure." Rose motioned for Al to follow her and she walked to a dark corner near the toilets, then nodded at Al. He pulled the Cloak out of his bag and wrapped it around both of them. They crept closer to the table and nearly bumped into Min carrying four butterbeers back to the table, and leaned

against the edge of the bar so as not to get knocked over in the traffic of the pub.

"Well, I'm sure you know that I'm simply honored to be elected, Mr. Malfoy," Rose's mother was saying, and Lucius smiled an incredibly false-looking smile.

"Of course, Ms. Weasley. And I'm… interested to see what our meeting with the Hogwarts staff will result in. As I'm sure you know, I'm hopeful that we can find a more satisfactory defense strategy for the school."

"I don't quite understand your meaning, Mr. Malfoy," Rose's mother said, though Rose recognized her tone instantly as her 'warning' tone. "I thought we were here simply to oversee the Auror defense force."

"Well, initially, yes, that was the agenda. However, I have recently had some concerns about the quality of the defense given to the school by the Aurors."

Her mother smiled politely and said, "Whatever concerns you may have, I can assure as head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, the Auror office has always been staffed with the very best that the wizarding community has to offer."

"That is where we differ in opinion, Ms. Weasley," he said. Rose didn't like the way he pronounced their surname at all; it was as if he was tasting something awful.

"Actually, Mr. Malfoy, my professional name is still Granger," she said coolly, and Rose couldn't help but giggle a little. Al covered her mouth quickly, though, and no one appeared to notice.

"Of course," he said after slight hesitation. "My apologies. As I was saying, the Auror office seems to have, in recent years, shown a certain lax in its standards. I have no doubt that you're aware of the immediate hiring of certain… veterans of the Second War without any proper training whatsoever, no matter how little talent was shown."

"Well, that was before my tenure as Head of the Office, but if you're attempting to imply something about my husband—"

"No, no, Ms…Granger, not specifically, I mean no offense," he said completely unbelievably, "I only mean to say that there seems to have been a certain favoritism shown towards more… radical liberal ideals recently in the Auror department. Anyone without such beliefs hasn't been able to easily secure a job in the Ministry in a very long time. I don't mean to say that it has anything to do with you, and I only want further investigation to be done on the backgrounds of the Aurors stationed at Hogwarts. I'm merely thinking of the children, you understand."

Rose's mother was clearly finished being polite and did not smile. "To be frank, Mr. Malfoy, I don't believe you have much authority in matters such as unbiased acceptance of beliefs, or concern for children, considering recent events."

Lucius laughed and Rose got a slight chill. "Ms. Granger, I do hope you aren't referring to my personal life, which is hardly relevant in this discussion—"

"Actually, Mr. Malfoy, I happen to believe that it is. I'm going to go up to the castle now, and will request that our meetings with Professor McGonagall be separate." Without another word, Rose's mother stood and walked quickly out of the pub, leaving Rose and Al gaping at each other in awe. They followed her out and Rose called after her as Al took off the Cloak.

"Mum!" she called, and when her mother turned around, she jumped a little.

"Oh, hello, Rose," she said. "I didn't see you there. I'm sorry, I'm not really in the right state to talk—"

"We know, we saw," she said.

"That was brilliant, Aunt Hermione!" Al exclaimed, and her mother sighed.

"The Cloak?" she asked. They nodded sheepishly and she shook her head.

"Well, I'm sorry you saw that." But after a moment's hesitation she said, "However, I'm not sorry I said it."

Rose grinned and her mother smiled a little. "Run along, you two. I'll be at the castle later today and I'll try to come see you then." They nodded and she continued up the path. Rose and Al turned to go back into the pub and found themselves face to face with Lucius himself.

"Mr. Potter. Miss Weasley," he said, looking very annoyed. "Excuse me." He practically pushed them into the doorframe as he left the pub, muttering something about respect. Rose and Al sat down at the booth and Al began to recount the entire conversation in detail while Rose quietly sipped her butterbeer, thinking. She had to get to Owl Post somehow, and it wasn't long before she thought of an excuse.

"So then Aunt Hermione says, 'I don't believe you have much authority in—'," Al was saying, and Rose interrupted.

"I just remembered, I needed to tell my mum something, I'll be back in a few minutes." Scorpius and Min nodded absently, engrossed in Al's story, and Rose slipped out of the booth quickly. She hurried down the street to the post office at a speed that could almost be considered running, and had nearly made it when she almost walked right into two people crossing her path. She started to apologize, and then realized that one of them was Professor Barton. "Oh, I'm sorry, Professor," she said quickly, and he smiled.

"It's quite all right, Miss Weasley. Ah, this is Ms. Jones, one of my former colleagues from my days as an Auror. Hestia, this is one of my best students, Rose Weasley."

"Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Jones," she said politely, and the woman shook hands.

"And you, Rose," she said.

"Ms. Jones is going to be one of the new Aurors on the grounds for the next month," Professor Barton explained. "She's here straight from Azkaban."

Hestia Jones wrinkled her nose. "Don't mention the place. It's dreadfully boring most of the time. And I wasn't even on duty that night, by the way, but I was called in to clean up, of course," she said, smiling.

"Sorry, what night?" Rose asked, confused. She hadn't heard anything about Azkaban recently.

Hestia and Barton exchanged surprised looks. "You haven't heard?" Barton asked.

"I don't get the Daily Prophet, Professor," Rose said.

Hestia chuckled a little and muttered, "Smart girl."

"There was a breakout at Azkaban, a few nights ago," Barton explained. "Some of the Death Eaters from the Second Wizarding War escaped. But there are several Aurors looking for them, and you shouldn't worry too much about it."

"Was there a motive? Or… names?" Rose asked, and Barton sighed.

"It's not anything you need to concern yourself with, Miss Weasley. The Aurors are perfectly capable of handling this situation." Rose didn't understand why they were all stationed at Hogwarts if they were needed to catch Death Eaters. But she simply nodded and smiled.

"Right. Sorry, Professor. I should go now," she said, and he nodded.

"I'll see you in class, Miss Weasley," he said, and Hestia nodded to her before they continued on their way. Rose dashed into the Owl Post as soon as possible and pulled out the short letter she had written the day before from her cloak, which sounded nearly identical to the last one she had sent. She took it to the counter and handed the worker a few Sickles. He tied the letter to an owl and it took off. Before she left, she pulled out a handful of Knuts.

"Can I have a Daily Prophet, please? From… Wednesday," she added to the worker, who looked at her a little oddly before pulling out the paper from under the counter. As she left the shop, she read the cover and felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.

 **FIRST AZKABAN BREAKOUT IN OVER 20 YEARS**

 _Late last night, five dangerous convicts of Azkaban prison escaped from the high security facility. The convicts seemed to have escaped with the help of an outside source, though the source in question has not yet been determined. The convicts were all serving life sentences for war crimes related to the Second Wizarding War and allegiance to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Azkaban prison's security has been increased in the last few years by the Auror office as a revision to the reforms brought on by Minister for Magic Percival Weasley in 2011. Despite rising rumors that the escape was made possible by Minister Weasley's reforms banning the use of dementors, the creatures previously used for Azkaban guards, these accusations fall short when considering the consistent success of the Auror department's control of the facility. "The security of Azkaban remains one of the Auror office's top priorities, and I strongly believe that this escape was not a result of lesser security measures," Harry Potter, Head of the Auror office, remarked in an official statement released this morning. "The use of dementors is inhumane and an attempt to harness uncontrollable Dark forces that will not be tolerated in the Ministry again."_

 _The escapees are Antonin Dolohov, Rabastan Lestrange, Walden Macnair, Augustus Rookwood, and Edward Mulciber. Their pictures can be seen below; they are highly dangerous and have been known to use Unforgivable Curses. If seen, please DO NOT APPROACH and call the Auror office immediately._

Rose hurried back to the Three Broomsticks and found the other three waiting for her at the table, along with the addition of James and Stephanie, looking annoyed. "Took you long enough," Min snorted.

"I ran into Professor Barton and an Auror. There was a breakout at Azkaban." Rose set the paper on the table and the others crowded around to read it. After a while, James sat back looking grim.

"Dolohov killed Teddy's father," he said darkly. "And I think Rookwood had something to do with Uncle Fred's death."

"This is really bad," Al said.

"Do you think Nott was the one who broke them out?" Scorpius asked.

Rose shrugged. "I don't know. Seems likely. Who else has the power to do something like that?"

"Maybe the Order of the Cobra," James suggested.

"Are they still associated with the Death Eaters? It didn't sound like it when they attacked," Al said.

"Whoever it is, things are getting pretty dark," Stephanie said. "Have you, er, heard anything, Scorpius?"

Scorpius rolled his eyes. "They wouldn't have told me anything they didn't want you all to know. But no one showed up at the door in black cloaks and asked for my grandfather, if that's what you mean."

"All right, well, maybe that's a good thing," Min said. "But can we just forget about it for now? I want to go to Honeydukes."

"Yeah, we can talk about this at the next meeting," Al agreed, and they all gathered their things to leave.

Scorpius walked up to Rose as they left the pub and said quietly, "This is much worse than even they think. Lestrange is one of the most dangerous Dark wizards alive even by himself. And everyone who escaped was right in You-Know-Who's inner circle. You didn't get there unless you were the best."

Rose sighed. "I figured as much. I wish I knew what Nott was planning. Maybe we could figure it out if we just knew what that symbol meant."

"We'll keep looking," he said. "But in the meantime, I'm actually glad there are Aurors at Hogwarts. They won't be able to attack us here with a guard on the grounds."

Rose nodded as they kept walking up the road. "I hope you're right."


	10. The Duel in the Corridor

**Hi everyone! Sorry it's taken a little longer than usual. But here's the new chapter, enjoy! Please review! -Kelly**

CHAPTER TEN

THE DUEL IN THE CORRIDOR

The next couple months progressed mostly quietly, at least at Hogwarts. By the middle of December, the temperature had plummeted and snowstorms had become a common occurrence, making even visiting Hagrid a perilous journey. Rose preferred to stay inside, and continued looking for something about a stone that brings people back from the dead for a moment, or anything about the symbol. The symbol was the most frustrating, as Rose wasn't really expecting to find anything about the stone, and she knew she had seen the symbol somewhere. She only wished she remembered where she had seen it, as then at least she could ask the right person about it. The Azkaban breakout also caused her some stress, but she tried not to think about it too much, and told herself she wasn't in any real danger where she was.

Hugo had started attending the Modernist meetings, despite Rose's concerns, and had brought Lily along for the last few weeks to James's annoyance. Rose didn't want them to be scared by the meetings, but she secretly was glad that they were informed about what was going on. She knew that it was dangerous, especially considering what Rosier had said and the Death Eaters on the run across the country, but she was proud of her brother for not being afraid of any of that.

Rose arrived at the Great Hall with Hugo, Al, and Scorpius for the last meeting before the holidays to find Lucy pacing in front of the table and Stephanie, Aidan, James, and Ava sitting at the end nervously, while Hagrid watched from the other end of the table. The Great Hall was mostly deserted, as no one was really bothering to study so close to Christmas, and Rose sat down next to Aidan, confused. "What's going on?"

"Lucy just found out about even more attacks in the country," he told her. "They're attacking Muggleborns everywhere. Godric's Hollow, Bath, Cardiff, it's all over the news."

"We have to warn people," Lucy exclaimed. "Muggleborns are going home for Christmas and some of them don't even know they're in danger! We should start by just going over what's happened in the last two months, and then maybe teach some self-defense?"

Rose sat through most of the meeting taking notes quietly, while Lucy and Stephanie talked the group through the last two months of attacks. Ever since the Death Eaters broke out of Azkaban, there had been sightings all over the UK, and occasionally they would kill a Muggleborn. They were sporadic enough to be sparking panic; there was no way to predict where they would be and what they would do. After that, Lucy motioned for her to put her quill down and said, "All right, so we're going to go over some defensive strategies for those of you who don't know them. Does everyone know the Disarming Spell?" Most people nodded, as it was first or second year magic, but Hugo and Lily tentatively shook their heads. "Er… Rose, come help me with this one. We can teach the Shield Charm too."

Rose felt a little nervous to get up in front of everyone, especially considering she had only done the Shield Charm once or twice. "All right, so the spell's _Expelliarmus_ …er, you move your wand left, then down, like this." Lucy demonstrated the motion, then turned to Rose. "Watch me. _Expelliarmus_." Rose's wand jerked out of her hand and landed about ten feet away, and she went to get it. "Now, Rose is going to stop me with a Shield Charm. The incantation's _Protego,_ and… watch her. Ready, Rose?" Rose nodded, a little nervous, and Lucy did the Disarming spell again.

Rose shouted a little more forcefully than probably necessary, " _Protego!_ " To her delight, it worked, and Lucy's spell did nothing to her wand. The shield disappeared after a few seconds and Lucy grinned.

"Brilliant. Okay, first years, you're up." Rose spent the next fifteen minutes or so trying to help Lily and Hugo with the spells. Both of them managed to disarm each other eventually, but only Lily produced a flickering grey barrier for about a second, and Hugo's spell still worked. Rose tried to tell her that she could barely do the Shield Charm herself, but Lily was very put out by the whole thing. At the end of the meeting, Lucy said, "So we'll be meeting again after we come back, there'll be a notice in the common rooms. Try to enjoy the holidays and please stay safe." The meeting ended and Aidan stood up.

"I'll see you after break, Rose," he said, and started to leave. Rose called after him as he walked towards the door.

"Aidan, you'll be careful at home, won't you?" she asked, and he looked a little embarrassed.

"Er, I'm not… going home," he explained quickly. "Happy Christmas, Rose." As he left, Rose walked back to the table and saw Hugo, Al, and Scorpius waiting for her.

"Let's go," she said, and they had just left the Great Hall when they heard an all too familiar voice laughing at the end of the corridor. Rose looked quickly to see Rosier and Burke approaching quickly, talking loudly.

"I'm glad we're all going home tomorrow," Rosier was saying. "Maybe some of the Mudbloods will go get themselves offed by those prisoners."

"Yeah, Merlin knows they're safe here. That old bat McGonagall has got Aurors everywhere," Burke said. "My great uncle's trying to stop it, but that old bat McGonagall isn't letting him do anything."

"Oh, brilliant," Rosier called out when he saw them, "is the Mugglelover club let out? You know your Mudblood mother can't protect her own over the holidays, Weasleys, I hope Dolohov and the others get her too."

Rose felt her ears growing red and Hugo said angrily, "Don't talk about my mum like that!"

Rosier and Burke laughed. "I'll say whatever I want, it's not like you could do anything to stop me." Hugo started fishing for his wand and Rosier looked at Burke in surprise. "You don't want to fight me, Weasley."

" _Expelliarmus!_ " Hugo shouted nervously. Despite not really being very concentrated, he managed to drop Burke's wand to the ground. Rosier chuckled a little and pulled out his wand.

" _Densaugeo!_ " Rosier yelled, and the spell shot from his wand towards Hugo. Al, being the closest to him, cast a Shield Charm before the spell hit him.

Rose saw Al telling Hugo to go find a teacher as Scorpius stepped in front of both of them and shouted, " _Furnunculus!_ " Rosier blocked it and Burke, having found his wand, looked directly at Rose.

" _Relashio!_ " he shouted, and she felt her wand being thrown from her hand as she flew backwards into the wall. At this point, there were a good deal of students watching and Rose felt embarrassed to be the first one really affected. Rose got up, angry, ignoring her sudden headache, and scrambled for her wand. She noticed with annoyance that her books had spilled out of her bag and started to clean up before remembering a spell she had learned the previous week.

" _Oppugno!_ " she shouted, and the books and papers started rocketing towards Burke, who was sufficiently distracted for the only remaining threat to be Rosier.

" _Pungerium!_ " Rosier shouted as Rose hurried back to Scorpius and Al, and Scorpius was blasted back to the ground as his face began to distort.

Al tried to disarm Rosier, but he blocked it and called out, " _Engorgio skullus!_ "

" _Protego!_ " Rose yelled quickly, and to her surprise, it held and Rosier's spell turned back onto himself. He fell over as his head started to grow.

At that moment, Rose heard a voice call out, "Enough!" The whole crowd turned as Professor Barton ran in with Hugo and Al groaned.

"You got the Head of Slytherin?" he asked incredulously.

"I couldn't find anyone else!" Hugo insisted, and Barton walked over to Rosier and Burke.

"Mr. Burke, please take Mr. Rosier to the hospital wing. Oh, and your detentions will be served when you return from the holidays. Thirty points from Slytherin.""You can't do that! We're in the lead for the Cup!" Burke complained as he helped Rosier up.

"As a matter of fact I can," Barton said. "You, however, cannot start duels with first years. You four, follow me to my office," he added, turning to Rose and the others, and Rose felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. "The rest of you, get back to your houses," he said, addressing the whole room, and the crowd began to disperse as Rose followed Barton to his office, with Al and Hugo guiding Scorpius, who was finding it difficult to see.

They entered the dungeons and went into the small office off of the NEWT Potions room. Rose shuddered as she remembered the last time she had been here, in first year with the Order. There was only one seat in front of his desk, and Al helped Scorpius into it as the other three stood behind the chair. Barton sat down and looked at all of them. "What happened to Mr. Malfoy?" he asked. "A Stinging Jinx, correct?"

"Yes, sir," he said.

"It'll go away within the hour, there's not much else I can do," he said apologetically.

"We didn't mean to get in a fight, sir," Al began, and Barton held up a hand.

"It's all right, Mr. Potter, I know how Mr. Rosier and his friends can be. It seems they constantly have detentions. And while I will have to take thirty points from Gryffindor, in fairness… I will not give you detention. I will be required to inform your Head of House, however. If you have no further questions, you may go." Rose looked at Al in surprise, and then turned to Professor Barton.

"Thank you, Professor," she said, and they quickly left the office.

"That was not what I was expecting," Scorpius said as they climbed up the stairs from the dungeons.

"He was an Auror," Al said. "He's not anything like the last two Potions professors."

When they returned to Gryffindor tower, they were met with loud applause and James and Roxanne came running over to them.

"Did you really make Rosier's head swell?" Roxanne asked. "Dylan said it was nearly twice its size."

"Rather poetic, really," James remarked.

"It was his own spell," Rose said. "It rebounded."

James grinned. "Well that's even better."

"I saw the whole thing," Harry added, coming up behind James. "She took out Burke, too. Sent loads of books at his head."

"He threw me into a wall, I wasn't happy," Rose said.

"Well, no, I reckon not," Roxanne said.

"This is your second duel, Rosie, you might want to relax a little," James said. Rose sighed and walked towards the girls' rooms.

"I'm going to bed," she said, and James looked a little put out. "And Hugo started it anyway," she added as she walked up the stairs. James's eyes widened and he turned around.

"Hugo! Hugo!" she heard him shouting, and she laughed a little as she climbed the stairs to her room. She sat down on the bed and tried to relax a little, knowing she would soon be hounded by Min once she came upstairs. Despite the growing concern she felt for the Muggleborns, especially her mother, she was very glad to be going home the next day.


	11. Weasley Jumpers

**Hi everyone! I'll be uploading a few more today, so sorry about the break, there was no internet at my summer program. Anyway, here's chapter eleven! (Edit: I hope I fixed the formatting, let me know if it still looks off, sorry about that!)**

CHAPTER ELEVEN

WEASLEY JUMPERS

Rose stepped off of the Hogwarts Express with Hugo and Scorpius close behind her. James, Al, and Lily had already gotten off, and Rose could see them standing with Uncle Harry talking to Mr. Dursley and Collin, with her own parents nearby. Emma appeared next to them then and said, "I have to go home for Christmas, but I'll be there for the wedding. Come say hi." Hugo ran up to the group with Emma, while Rose waited for Scorpius and stopped him.

"Have you ever talked to a Muggle?" she asked him. "Like, actually talked to one?"

"Does Professor Creevey count?" he asked.

"No."

"Then no, I guess not," he admitted.

"It's probably a good idea not to talk about the fact that he's a Muggle much, then," she sighed as they approached the group. "Oh, and don't look at him like something in a zoo, they hate that. I would, too. Oh, and Collin's not even really a Muggle, he got thrown off the swings last summer and flew about twenty feet before floating back down." They had reached the others by then and Uncle Harry turned to them. "Rose, you remember Mr. Dursley, don't you?"

"Yeah, nice to see you again, Mr. Dursley," she said, and he shook her hand.

"Hey, Rose," Collin said eagerly. "Where's…um, Roxanne, I think? Yeah, Hugo said she could get me some candy that could get me out of class?"

"I don't think that's a good idea, maybe when you're older," she said quickly, and Uncle Harry quickly changed the subject.

"Er, Dudley, this is Scorpius, he's a friend of Al and Rose's," he said, and Mr. Dursley held out his hand to Scorpius as well.

"Good afternoon…Scorpius," Mr. Dursley said, and Scorpius shook his hand, looking a little nervous. "Well, we'd better go…come on, Emma, get your brother."

"Are they from that cool shop your uncle works at?" Collin was asking Hugo, and he looked put out at a look from his father. "All right, then, I'll talk to you soon. Hey, could you send me an owl? That'd be so cool!"

"I could just… phone you," Hugo said. "We do have a phone."

"Oh! Okay. Bye, Hugo!" he said quickly as he ran after his father. Emma waved goodbye quickly as they walked away. Almost immediately, their mother pulled Hugo aside. Rose heard something about the different worlds and secrecy, which Hugo understandably argued against by saying that he's practically at Hogwarts and it's not like he doesn't know everything already.

Rose's father approached Rose and Scorpius and said, "Let's go to the car, wait for them there." Rose nodded and followed her dad back through the barrier. "So, how's school been?"

"Pretty good. Gryffindor's winning the Quidditch cup so far," Rose said.

"Yeah, Al's caught the Snitch every time," Scorpius added.

"But the Auror guards are annoying," Rose complained. "I know they're there to keep us safe…"

"But honestly if we can get hexed by Rosier and his friends without them noticing…" Scorpius muttered, but Rose's dad heard it.

"What? Did you say Rosier?"

"Yeah, just this Slytherin boy," Rose said, rolling her eyes.

"He's hexing you?"

"Well, we hexed him too," Scorpius admitted.

"You've been duelling?" Rose's dad asked as they reached the car.

"Duelling? Who's dueling?" Rose's mother asked, and Rose thought her mother probably had the worst timing in the world. "Rosier was being awful, Mum," Hugo tried to explain, and her eyes widened.

"You were there?" she asked, shocked. "Get in the car, all of you." Rose entered first and exchanged a solemn look with Scorpius and Hugo. "Rose, why did you get Hugo involved with this? I thought you were supposed to protect him."

Rose was thrown off by the disappointed look on her mother's face as her father drove in silence, and didn't respond before Hugo said, "She didn't, we were just walking and Rosier came up to us, and he was talking about you, Mum, and I got really mad so I told him to stop and then he tried to hex me but then we all got involved and Rose made his head really big—"

"It was his spell, it rebounded," Rose corrected quickly.

"We couldn't just let him—he called you a—um…"

"It's all right, Hugo," Rose's mother sighed. "Just… try to stay calm next time." The rest of the car ride passed mostly in silence, until they were pulling into the driveway of the Burrow, when their mother said, "I forgot to tell you; your gran has asked for some help with the Christmas jumpers this year. If she asks either of you, I want you to help her."

"Mum…" Hugo moaned, and their mother gave him a warning look.

"Your gran works very hard on those jumpers, Hugo."

"I know," he mumbled. The car pulled to a stop and Rose hopped out, as did Scorpius, both clearly very glad to escape the situation. Rose's dad got out soon after them and stopped Rose before she entered the house.

"You won, right? The duel?" he asked.

Rose nodded. "Yeah. Rosier had to go to the hospital wing."

"That's my girl." Rose walked inside and was greeted by Gran and Granddad, sitting at the kitchen table.

"Rose! Welcome home," Gran exclaimed, and Rose went over to hug her. She saw Scorpius and Al sitting in the living room behind them with Aunt Ginny, and Gran let go of her before saying, "Now, about the Christmas jumpers—"

"Oh, yeah, Mum told me. I'll help," she offered, and Gran smiled.

"That's wonderful. Most of the other children have been hiding from me." Al's eyes widened when he heard this and made a break for the stairs. Gran rolled her eyes a little and said, "Al, I do need more than one helper, you know."

"I'll help," Scorpius offered, and Al turned to him.

"It's official, you're my best friend. Sorry, Rose," he said. "I'm going to find James." And with that, he was gone up the stairs, and Gran turned to Scorpius.

"Do you know how to knit, Scorpius? I'll teach you if you don't."

"Er… yeah, I do," he said, looking a little embarrassed.

Gran looked impressed. "Holly didn't do all that?"

"Well, she did, I just… I didn't like making her do stuff for me. She taught me how."

"All right, then, I'll let you get settled. We can start in a little while."

"Oh, uh, Scorpius, we set up a bed for you in James's room," Aunt Ginny said. Scorpius glanced at Rose.

"Er… doesn't he already share with Al?" he asked weakly.

"No, they didn't get on very well when they were little. Al shares with Hugo," Aunt Ginny explained. Scorpius nodded and shrugged with what looked like some effort.

"All right then," he said quietly, and Rose followed him up the stairs. As soon as they were out of earshot of the ground floor, he turned to Rose in horror. "I thought I'd be with your brother!" he exclaimed.

"I didn't even think about it," Rose admitted, giggling a little. This would be entertaining, at least.

"You have to help me," he groaned. Just then, Rose heard James from the next floor up.

"Why is there another bed in my room?"

"Believe me, I'm not happy about it either," Scorpius called up, and there was a short period of silence before James came barreling down the stairs. He stopped briefly next to them.

"Tell me you're joking, Malfoy," he said. Scorpius shook his head and James started running down the stairs again. "Mum! Mum! You can't be serious!"

By the end of the night, Hugo had moved into James's room for the holidays and Scorpius took his bed in the room with Al, after a lot of bickering that Rose thought was very unnecessary and annoying. She spent the time before supper in her room, and was reading when Lily burst in and flopped down on her bed. "Can I stay here? I hate my brothers." Rose grinned.

"Sure," she said, and Lily hopped up, took a book off of Rose's bookshelf, and sat back down. She had always liked Lily for her ability to be quiet, a feat never quite achieved by practically anyone else in the Burrow. Of course, when Lily wanted to, she could rival even James in terms of wildness, but she was still rather bookish, which was probably the reason she was in Ravenclaw.

The housing issues effectively delayed the jumper-making until after dinner when Gran tracked Rose and Scorpius down and sat them in the living room.

"All right, so I'm very glad that you two are here to help me. We have quite a lot of jumpers to make. I usually start on these a lot earlier, but with the wedding—did Min tell you about the bridesmaid dresses, they're just wonderful—well, you see, I haven't had much time. Besides, I have my seven children, six of their husbands or wives, 12 grandchildren, my husband, and then there's Emma and her brother, and Teddy, and you, dear," she added, looking at Scorpius and his eyes widened.

"Me? Oh, you don't have to give me one," he said quickly and she shook her head.

"Oh, hush, love—anyway, that's 30 jumpers, so we'd better get started."

Rose and Scorpius helped Gran for the next few days, and Rose was seriously beginning to regret volunteering to help. They finally finished the last ones on Christmas Eve, and Gran began wrapping them all. She gave Rose two jumpers with E and C on them and said, "Could you two please send an owl with these to Emma and Collin?"

"Sure," Rose said, and Scorpius followed her up to the stairs to her room. She sat down at her desk and wrote out a quick note to Emma and tied it to the package. She let Musetta out of her cage and she flew out the window with the jumpers. "Sorry you had to help with all those," she told Scorpius. "I should have told you how many she makes."

Scorpius shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I like her. What else would I be doing anyway? Sitting around with James?"

"We could be playing Quidditch," Rose pointed out, and Scorpius shrugged.

"It's fine, Weasley, don't worry about it," he said. "Besides, this is basically the best Christmas I've ever had."

She frowned a little, and it got suddenly very quiet. After a moment, she said, "Have you… heard from them?"

"No," he said shortly. "Whatever. I don't care." They both knew it was a lie, and it was silent again until Rose spoke.

"I'm sorry, Scorpius," she said quietly. He didn't answer, and after a minute, Rose heard something from outside. She walked up to her window and looked down. She saw her dad and Uncle Harry standing outside with a woman that she knew looked familiar. She couldn't quite make out who it was at first.

"Do you know her?" Scorpius asked her, and she suddenly recognized her when her head turned, showing them more of her face.

"That's Hestia Jones. She's an Auror," Rose explained. "Here." She cracked her window open, just enough to be able to hear their conversation.

"Are you sure it's true, Hestia?" Uncle Harry was saying.

"I'm sure. My source is never wrong."

Uncle Harry turned to Rose's father. "All right then. We'll leave in three days. After the wedding?"

He nodded. "Sure."

"All right. We'll see you then, Hestia. Let's hope we catch them."

Rose closed her window quickly as they turned back towards the house and looked at Scorpius.

"They're going to find the prisoners, aren't they?" he asked.

She nodded. "Let's hope they catch them." And that they don't get hurt, Rose added in her head.

"Well, I'm tired," Scorpius said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah. Good night. Happy Christmas," Rose added as Scorpius walked to the door.

"You too," he replied quickly, and Rose sat down at her desk as soon as he left. She never liked when her dad left for a job. As if she needed another reason to be nervous about the wedding.


	12. The Wedding Reception

**Hi everyone! Thanks for reading, I hope you like the chapter! Reviews are great! -Kelly**

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE WEDDING RECEPTION

The last time Rose had been to a wedding was Luna and Mr. Scamander's, and she was only three or four then. She didn't remember much about it except that she hated the dress she was wearing and she fell asleep at the reception. So she wasn't that surprised to learn that she didn't exactly enjoy weddings. Though she did think that may have had more to do with the dress she had been forced to wear. They were, of course, very fashionable, as this was Victiore's wedding, but Rose thought that the pink did not compliment her standard Weasley red hair all that well. She didn't like wearing dresses much at all to begin with.

Rose was sitting at the wedding party table between Min and Roxanne, listening to a young Auror she hadn't met before this morning give the best man speech when she saw it. She glanced at Teddy and Victiore sitting in the middle of the table, looking simply too happy, and then out at the rest of the tables underneath the tent. Some sort of weather spell had been performed, and while it was incredibly cold and snowy outside, underneath the tent it was room temperature. Her eye caught on a small light in a far corner, and she squinted to see. Someone had lit their wand and was reading intently at their table. She looked closer, trying to identify the guest, but before she could, the applause started and whoever it was put out the light.

Once the dances started, Rose was finished eating and was starting to become quite bored when Al sat down in the chair next to her, no longer occupied by Min as she was dancing with Harry somewhat reluctantly. "Have you seen them?" he asked.

"Who? Teddy and Victiore? I try not to look, it's a bit sickening," Rose said, and Al rolled his eyes.

"No. Over there, look," he told her, looking pointedly at the edge of the dance floor and Rose followed his gaze. She nodded slowly as she saw Luna dancing with Neville.

"Where's… Mrs. Longbottom?" she asked, and Al went a little pink.

"Er… she stayed at Hogwarts, I think. My dad says McGonagall asked her to but…. Ariana told me they've been fighting. Especially when Luna comes round."

"Why would she…?" Rose asked, and Al grimaced.

"To see Frank," he said, and when Rose replied with a blank expression, Al's eyes widened. "You didn't know?"

"Didn't know what?"

"Frank's—Frank's Luna's son."

"What?"

"Yeah. Er, Neville took him when they broke up, since Luna was still traveling so much for her work and—you really didn't know that, Rose?"

Rose shook her head, getting embarrassed now. "Well, it's not like anyone talks about it."

"Yeah, I suppose. Hey—what's that Auror doing here? The one from school?"

Rose looked and saw Hestia Jones was sitting with her father and Uncle Harry, deep in conversation, at one of the tables on the other side of the dance floor. Rose immediately remembered the person she had seen reading and stood up. "I don't know, but Scorpius and I heard them talking the other day. I think they're working on the prison breakout thing. Come on, let's see for ourselves."

"It's probably Auror business, Rose," Al said uncomfortably. "I don't think we should…"

Rose looked around and had an idea when she saw her Uncle Percy sitting with Aunt Audrey, Molly, Lucy, and Ava at a table nearby. "Let's pretend we're talking to them and listen," she suggested. Al's eyes widened.

"You're volunteering to go over there?" he asked incredulously. "Are you mad?"

Rose looked at him blankly. "It's the only way to find out what they're talking about, you said it yourself," she said.

Al sighed. "All right, fine." Rose walked out from behind the table and Al followed her to the table. Aunt Audrey looked up when he saw them and smiled. Uncle Percy was deep in conversation with Lucy and Molly. Rose and Al sat down across from Aunt Audrey and Ava.

"Hi Ava," Rose said awkwardly.

"Hey Rose," she said, smiling.

"How are you, Rose?" Audrey asked.

"I'm fine, thanks," she said politely.

"I heard that you're taking Ancient Runes this year? I loved that subject in school," Audrey said. Rose's eyes widened and Al looked at her questioningly.

"No, she's not, she's taking Arithmancy, and Muggle Studies, and Divination, just like Scorpius, right Rose?" Al asked, and Rose nodded quickly.

"Oh…that's what your father told me, anyway," Audrey said, shrugging.

"There's nothing more I can do, Lucy, we've been over this!" Uncle Percy suddenly burst out, and Al and Rose glanced at each other. Audrey coughed nervously.

"That's mad! They can't just stay there with everyone else! Rose and Al know what I mean, right?" Lucy asked, turning to them. Uncle Percy turned to them too and Al looked at Rose in horror.

"Er… yeah, it's not… who are we talking about?" Rose asked.

"Rosier and Burke and Nott and all their friends," Lucy said. "Shouldn't they have been expelled? They kidnapped you!"

"There was no proof that they weren't operating under the Imperius curse, Lucy," Molly said and Lucy scoffed.

"What about the fact that Flint's gone and they're still purist gits?" she remarked. Uncle Percy sighed.

"That's not proof they tried to hurt anyone," he explained.

"Well, they just tried to hurt Hugo," Rose said.

"What?" Molly asked.

"We… there was a fight," Al said.

"Fight?" Molly asked, going pale. "That I didn't know about? I'm Head Girl!"

"Not a very observant one, apparently," Lucy muttered. "And honestly, does no one talk to you or something? I knew about that fight and I'm not in either House."

"Did you really hear about it?" Rose asked, surprised.

"Yeah, I heard you put Rosier in the hospital wing," Lucy said, grinning.

"Rose?" Molly asked weakly.

"The point is," Uncle Percy said loudly, "the students in question are underage and therefore cannot be interrogated using Veritaserum, besides the fact that the case is already closed. If you have any more questions I would direct them to Uncle Harry. I'm getting a drink." With that he stood up and left the table as if he was escaping. Lucy sighed and slid down into her chair. A few seconds later, Al tapped Rose on the arm and looked behind Ava at Rose's dad and Hestia standing up from the table, with Uncle Harry following them, and heading towards the opening in the tent.

"Er, excuse us," Rose said quickly, and they ran over to the three Aurors. "Dad!" she called out, and her father turned around.

"Hi, Rosie, what are you two doing?" he asked.

"Are you going somewhere?" she asked.

"Oh, er, Uncle Harry and I and—have you met Ms. Jones?" Rose nodded, glancing quickly at Hestia, and he continued. "Well—we have a job. I can't tell you what it is, it's secret, but it'll only take a few days, maybe a week at most. I'll be back before you leave for school, all right?"

"Okay," Rose said slowly, and Al said goodbye to his dad before the three of them Disapparated away.

"That was weird," Al said. "I think you and Scorpius are right."

"Yeah," Rose said quietly.

"Well… I'm going to go talk to Ariana," Al said quickly. "I, er, well… Emma wants me to dance with her. Says she fancies me." He grimaced and walked away. Rose sighed and walked over to the edge of the floor, where Emma was standing.

"Hey, Rose!" she said cheerfully. "I'm having so much fun! I love weddings, and the snow outside is so cool…"

"Yeah," Rose said. "I don't know how much I like it."

"Have you even been dancing at all?" Emma asked.

"No," she admitted. "But I saw Hestia here, and I think Scorpius and I were right about—"

"Can we not do this tonight?" Emma groaned. "I've been listening to you for the past two days and I can't stand it anymore. I should have stayed in Lily's room."

"Thanks," Rose said, rolling her eyes.

"Did Al dance with Ariana?" Emma asked.

"Yes, he's dancing with her right now," Rose said.

"Good… have you seen James, by the way?"

"No, why?"

"He's been asking Alice to dance every half hour."

"So have they been dancing?"

"No. She keeps reminding him he has a girlfriend."

"Well, that's James."

"Yeah. Do you mind if I go find Roxanne? She's been keeping track of the Min and Harry situation."

"Go ahead," Rose laughed, and Emma darted away. After a moment, Scorpius walked up to her and smiled.

"Hey, Weasley."

"Hey, Malfoy. Where've you been?"

"I got put at the Scamander table, but Luna's dancing with Professor Longbottom and the twins are… well, God knows where. I'd rather talk to you anyway."

"I'm flattered," she said. "By the way, my dad left with Uncle Harry and Hestia Jones. I think it was what they had been talking about."

Scorpius nodded quickly and glanced at the floor. He looked nervous. "Right. Good."

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, Weasley," he said. "Er, I like the dress."

"I don't," she snorted. "Pink isn't my color. And it's, you know, a dress."

"It looks good on you," he said, shrugging.

"Okay," Rose said slowly. "Are you being nice to me? What's going on?"

"I don't know, I like weddings," he said. "I like dancing."

"You like dancing?" Rose snorted.

"Yes, I do," he said, sounding a little self-conscious. "Why, don't you?"

"I don't know, I don't really dance," she said.

"Dance with me," he said suddenly, and Rose was so startled she just stared at him for a couple seconds before managing to reply.

"Dance with you?"

"Why not?"

"The song's almost over," she spluttered.

"The next one, then," he said.

She hesitated. It couldn't hurt, could it? And anyway, she figured she should dance at least once tonight. "All right, fine," she conceded. It wasn't until the song ended that she realized, to her horror, that the next song was far too slow for comfort. "This wasn't the plan," she argued when he held out his hand.

"You said next song," he insisted, and she groaned.

"Fine," she muttered, and he pulled her out onto the floor. She glanced around nervously as Scorpius put his hands on her waist, looking for a well-timed tantrum of James's, but eventually gave up and reached her hands up around his neck. They swayed a little awkwardly and Rose was very tempted to run screaming from the tent.

"This isn't so bad, is it?" he asked, smirking, and Rose glared at him. He smiled and she couldn't help but smile back.

"Er, so anyway, Hestia was looking at a book during the speeches, and I don't know what that would mean except a job, and that's where my dad said they were going, so it has to be—"

"Rose," Scorpius interrupted. "Just—just don't right now, all right? We can just be quiet."

Rose glared at him again, but stayed quiet, if only to prove she could. After a minute or so, she realized how comfortable she felt around Scorpius, having never really noticed before. She was still incredibly anxious about Min or James or God forbid Emma seeing them, but she did notice that she didn't feel awkward or anxious at all about the actual dancing part. She also started to notice how much she liked his smile and how she didn't really care that the song felt like it was going on forever. Towards the end, she saw Al across the floor, standing at the edge, openly staring at the two of them, and shot him a look that made him look away very quickly. When the song was over, Rose almost felt a little bit disappointed when Scorpius moved away from her hesitantly. "Another song?" he asked, and Rose couldn't tell if he sounded hopeful or just curious. She heard that the next song was also slow and shook her head quickly.

"No, I—no," she stuttered, and quickly left the floor. She ducked out from under the cover of the tent and stood just at the edge of the weather spell. _It was just a dance_ , she told herself. _There's no reason that it had to mean anything. You're only in third year, after all. You can dance with your friend. He's your friend._

 _Did you just dance with Scorpius? Rose?_

She ignored Al's foreign thoughts in her head. She didn't fancy him. She couldn't fancy him. She absolutely could not fancy Scorpius Malfoy.

She knew she was lying to herself, but she continued to do so until the reception was over, and then went quickly up to her bedroom and went to sleep before she could think any more about the whole thing.


	13. The First Day Back

**Hi guys! Thanks for reading, and please review, I love getting feedback from all of you. I hope you like the chapter! -Kelly**

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE FIRST DAY BACK

Rose went back to Hogwarts before her father and Uncle Harry came back from their job, despite what he had promised her. She had gotten a letter the day before they were supposed to leave saying that it was taking longer than they'd thought and to have fun at school. She also received a letter from Mrs. Malfoy asking about Scorpius's Christmas, which made Rose feel very uncomfortable to be caught in the middle of. She had declined to mention the wedding at all in her reply for fear of revealing anything about how she felt. She couldn't believe that it hadn't gone away in a few days like she'd thought it would. Rose had told herself that it was just the dancing and it didn't really mean anything, but when she caught herself staring at him reading in an armchair in the living room and thinking about the color of his eyes she had to admit there was something to this. She made every effort not to let him know, however, and thought she was doing rather well until breakfast the morning before their first day of classes.

"What are you looking at, Weasley?" Scorpius asked her from across the table, and she was so startled that she barely managed to think of an excuse.

"…You have a bit of jam on your chin," she sputtered, and he wiped his mouth and shrugged to her relief. She shook her head and kept her gaze firmly away from him for the rest of the meal. After breakfast, however, while they were walking to Defense, Scorpius came up to her and looked around nervously.

"Hey, Weasley, you still have that stone, right?" he whispered.

"Well, yes, I still don't know what it is, though," she said.

"Well, er, I think we should tell Al about it," he said.

"Er, okay, if you want to. You have to make sure he doesn't tell James though. We don't need everyone getting involved in this, and you know that always happens once James finds out," she reminded him.

"Yeah, I just think he should know. He'll feel left out if he finds out later."

"I know."

"All right, then, do you want to tell him or should I?"

"Could you just tell him tonight? I don't want to cause a scene."

"Right. Sure."

The rest of the day passed rather slowly until she made the usual 'bathroom' excuse and turned the Time-Turner back, running just in time to make it to Ancient Runes. After class, she approached Madam Babbling, thinking that if anyone could tell her what the symbol was, it was her, and the old woman smiled at her politely. "What can I do for you, Rose?"

"Er, I was just wondering, madam, if you had ever seen this before," she asked, and produced the spare parchment from the woods before. Babbling looked at it closely and shook her head slightly.

"Well, no, I haven't seen this particular symbol… it may be a sigil of some kind, a combination of symbols…"

"Do you know anything about what kind of symbol it is?" Rose asked.

"It looks rather… Anglo-Saxon. It's most likely made of Futhorc Runes, so the ones we're studying currently, though I couldn't tell you which ones. It seems like a symbol that came from somewhere in England or perhaps Scotland though. Rather medieval, though that's just because it's a runic symbol. Does that answer your question at all?"

"Er, I suppose. Thank you," she said, and the woman smiled apologetically.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be of any more help, Rose," she said. "Where did you find this symbol, may I ask?"

Rose thought for a second. "I was reading a text from the library, I forget which one, but er, it was in some of the footnotes and I was just wondering what it meant."

"Well, it could be the author's signature of some sort. I'm sure it's nothing too important, or they wouldn't have been so cryptic," Babbling said, smiling.

"Right," she replied, trying to sound content. "Have a good day, Professor."

"You too, Rose." Rose ducked out of the classroom and shoved the parchment back into her bag, disappointed at yet another waste of time. She walked to the Great Hall in a rather foul mood.

After dinner, she was talked into going to a chess club meeting by Aidan and ended up only getting to the common room at around 9:00, where she found Scorpius and Al deep in conversation in the corner. She avoided it entirely, suspecting what they were talking about, and sat down at a table on the opposite side of the room with Emma, Tyler, and Roxanne.

"Where's Min?" she asked. "I thought she'd be with you."

"She's probably fighting with Harry," Roxanne said, rolling her eyes.

"Or they're in some broom closet somewhere," Emma said.

"It's always one or the other," Tyler remarked.

"True," Emma said, laughing.

"I just can't believe they're still together," Rose said. "I didn't think it would last."

"Well… define 'together'," Roxanne snorted.

"Right," Rose said. "Have, uh… have Scorpius and Al… do you know what they're talking about?"

"No idea," Tyler said, shrugging. "Could you help me with my History of Magic essay?"

Rose glanced over at Scorpius and Al, figuring she would become very involved soon enough. "All right."

Tyler's essay took quite a bit of attempting to teach the subject matter before she finally just gave up and wrote it herself while he sat back, a little too pleased with himself. By the time they had finally finished, it was around 10:00, and Rose sat in a corner and read intently until people started to go up to bed. She was about to go up herself, being the last one left in the common room, when Scorpius and Al came quickly down the boys' stairs. Rose put her book down and sat up nervously. "Hi," she said. "What were you guys talking about earlier?"

Scorpius looked at her pointedly while Al stared at her. "You have a stone… that brings people back from the dead… and you didn't tell me?"

"We wanted to wait until the right moment," Rose said. "And we had to be totally sure you wouldn't tell James."

"Why can't I tell James?" he asked indignantly.

"If James knows, so does everyone," Scorpius muttered.

"All right, well, I don't tell him everything!"

"Yes you do," Rose said quietly.

Al looked as if he was going to argue further, but then decided against it. "Well, anyway, I know now, so I want to see it."

Rose looked up at the staircases nervously. "You're sure no one else is awake up there?"

"Well… we didn't see anyone," Scorpius said.

"All right, fine," Rose sighed. She dug around in her bag until she found the stone sitting at the bottom and handed it to Al. He tentatively reached out his hands and took it.

"That's the symbol from the cave," he said.

"We know. We've been trying to work out what it means," Rose explained.

"How does it—how does it work?" Al asked.

Rose and Scorpius glanced at each other. "Er, I was just looking at it… I turned it around a lot, maybe that's it?" he offered, and Al frowned. He flipped the stone around in his hand a few times and almost immediately a man appeared in the room, with the same strange ghostlike presence as Scorpius's grandfather had. Rose stared intently at the man, who looked around intently at the room.

"It hasn't changed much at all," he remarked. He looked down at them and smiled widely, and Rose blinked. She hadn't noticed until then, but he looked remarkably like Uncle Harry. Al was staring in shock at him, and it clicked in her mind then.

"You're James Potter, aren't you?" she asked, hearing the awe in her voice as she said it. He looked like he was going to respond to her, but before he could do so, he flickered suddenly away. Rose looked over at Al, who had dropped the stone. "What—pick it back up!"

"I—I can't, I…" Al stammered. "I just need a minute." With that, Al ran up the stairs and was gone. Rose groaned and picked the stone up off of the ground.

"We could get him to come back. I mean, he's your family too…" Scorpius suggested.

Rose shook her head. "We shouldn't really do that without Al."

"You're probably right." Scorpius sighed and sat down on the couch with her. "Well, that was a little disappointing, honestly."

"He's just nervous," she told Scorpius, and he nodded.

"Well, yeah. It's his granddad that he's never met, and a war hero as well. No wonder he's nervous."

"Think we should tell James now?" Rose asked. "I mean, if his namesake's—"

At that moment, the portrait hole swung open and Rose hurried to shove the stone back in her bag. Professor Rudomin came through the door looking very grim. When he saw Rose, he walked slowly over to her and Rose was suddenly filled with a kind of inexplicable dread. She glanced nervously at Scorpius and said, "Hi, Professor…"

"Miss Weasley, is your brother awake?" he asked quietly.

"Uh, no, I don't think so, why?"

"Mr. Malfoy, could you please get Hugo for us?" Rudomin asked Scorpius, and he got up hesitantly and hurried up the stairs to the boys' rooms.

"Is something wrong?" she asked. Rudomin sighed.

"I'm afraid so. I'd rather wait to let you know until your brother is here."

Two silent, tense minutes later, Scorpius came back down the stairs dragging a very groggy Hugo behind him. "What's going on?" Hugo mumbled.

"I'm sorry to tell you that your father has been injured while on an Auror mission in Cardiff. He's been brought to St. Mungo's Hospital and Professor McGonagall and I felt you would like to be there with your mother."

"What? What happened?" Rose asked, feeling panic creeping into her thoughts. She had always known this could happen, but it never had until now, and she was much more affected by it than she had thought she would be. Hugo looked as if he was trying as hard as he possibly could not to cry and she pulled him over to her side. He grabbed her hand so tightly she thought it might break something, but she let him.

"I don't know much, I just know to bring you to Professor McGonagall's office, where you'll be able to take a temporary Portkey to and from the hospital."

"Um… okay, then, let's just go," Rose sighed, and Rudomin started to walk towards the door. Scorpius stopped her when she started to walk.

"Hey, are you going to be okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine, Scorpius," she said shortly. She didn't have time for this at all, especially the way she felt when she really looked at him, and if she really had to think about it, she might start crying and then Hugo would start crying and she just couldn't handle that.

"You don't look fine," he said.

"I'll be back tomorrow," she said, and practically pushed past him, trailing Hugo behind her.

"I'll wait up for you," he called after her, and she slammed the door behind them.


	14. St Mungo's

**Hey everyone! Sorry it's taken so long, but here's the next chapter! I'm hoping to have another one up tomorrow, or at least in the next couple days, so look for those, and please review, I love the feedback! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 14

ST. MUNGO'S

St. Mungo's had seemed a lot less terrifying when Rose had been there for eating too many joke shop products when she was seven, or the vague memory of coming to the hospital when her mum had Hugo. She honestly hadn't been there much otherwise, since they went to a Muggle hospital for things like physical check-ups and vaccines. She and Hugo had been met with a nurse after riding on the Portkey, who led them to the fourth floor, the Spell Damage ward. They reached the room and the nurse disappeared as Rose peered inside first. She had to keep herself from gasping as she looked at her father, who was lying on a bed with bandages wrapped around his head and torso. He was breathing very shallowly and looked deeply asleep. Rose didn't see her mother anywhere, and Hugo quickly started trying to peek around. "Is he in there?" he asked, his voice shaking a little bit.

"Uh, yes, but—" Rose didn't even finish her sentence before Hugo pushed past her and stopped dead in the door. He stared at their father for a while before he spoke again.

"Where's Mum?" he asked, and Rose could hear that he had definitely started crying.

"Hugo, are you okay?" she asked tentatively.

"I'm fine, I'm not crying," he mumbled, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. "Where's Mum? Rudomin said she was here."

"I don't know, maybe she—" Rose started to say, but at that moment, she heard footsteps running down the hallway towards them. She looked and saw her mother, followed by Uncle Harry and Hestia Jones, coming towards them.

"Oh, Rose, Hugo," she sighed when she reached them, and grabbed them both, hugging them tightly. "I didn't know you were here."

"We just got here," Rose said. "Is Dad going to be okay?"

Her mother faltered. "We aren't quite sure yet how long it will take, but he'll be fine, yes."

"What happened?" Hugo asked quickly. Their mother looked back at Uncle Harry and Hestia hesitantly.

"We can't really tell you, Hugo," she said. "I'm sorry. It's Auror business."

"We should be allowed to know what happened to him!" Hugo exclaimed.

"If we could tell you, we would, I promise," Uncle Harry said. "But we can't."

"Harry, I'm going to go into the room," their mother said quietly, and hurried through the door and sat down in the chair next to his bed. She picked up his hand and held it with both of hers, and Rose couldn't watch any more after that.

"Come on, Hugo," she said, and walked down the hallway.

"Are you guys okay?" Uncle Harry asked.

"We just need… a minute," Rose said, and pulled Hugo after her through the door at the end of the hall. Hugo started pacing and she slid down the wall and sat with her head in her hands. She needed to sleep, and was seriously considering using the Time-Turner to get an hour of sleep in an empty patient room when Hugo tapped her on the shoulder.

"I think they're talking about it," Hugo said.

"What?"

"What happened. Come see," he said. Rose walked up to him, and he stood up on his toes to see out the window in the door. Rose looked too and saw Uncle Harry and Hestia standing outside their dad's room with their mum, looking very grim. Immediately, Rose dropped down to the bottom of the door and listened through the crack. Soon, she heard voices from inside.

"Tell me you at least caught them, Harry," her mother's voice said.

Uncle Harry hesitated before replying, "No, they got away. Ron had him, but Nott Disarmed him and then… well you can see…"

"I can't believe this," her mother sighed. "He's never gotten hurt on a job…"

"Well, he's been lucky, Hermione, we both have," Uncle Harry said.

"I know that," she snapped. "I review all of the reports from your office, Harry. I just feel like… I approved the personnel for the mission…"

"It's not your fault, Hermione," he said.

"Did you at least get any information?" their mother asked.

"Yes, actually," Hestia said. "We heard part of their planning before we tried to arrest them. The rest of the convicts are working for Nott, as we had suspected. We also know that he's recruited them to look for something, and they're going to try to break into a secure facility to get it."

"What facility?" their mother asked.

"We don't know," Uncle Harry admitted. "They didn't say. They did say something about…" he trailed off then.

"What?" she asked.

Uncle Harry sighed. "They said whatever they were looking for would be useful when they went after… Potter."

Rose had to keep herself from gasping as a hush fell over the room inside the door. "Harry…" her mother whispered.

"I'll be fine. I'm trained to protect people, I can protect myself… but as it is, I'm not sure I should be staying at the Burrow. It'll put Molly and Arthur in danger, not to mention you and Ron, and they might try to use Ginny to get to me… I'm going to get a place to stay in London until this is over."

"Harry, don't be stupid, we can protect ourselves too."

"I don't want to make you. I've already decided, anyway. I'm just glad that all the kids are at Hogwarts this year, I'd hate to think of what danger I'd be putting Hugo and Lily in."

"Speaking of the children, I'd better get Rose and Hugo back to school."

Rose hopped up and pushed Hugo down the hallway quickly as he looked at her with a surprised expression until they reached a bench a few yards from the door. She pulled them both down just as their mother opened the door. She smiled sadly when she saw them.

"Sorry about that. I'm sorry you two had to get up to come here too. I'll walk you two back to the Portkey, all right?"Rose nodded and said, "Yeah, sure, Mum. Are you going to be okay tonight without us?"

"Oh, you're sweet, Rose. I'll be fine, don't worry about me. I'll write to you soon about Dad, okay?" she asked as they arrived at the Portkey.

"Okay," she said, grabbing the dilapidated boot.

"Bye, Mum," Hugo said, hugging their mother, and grabbed on as well. A few seconds later, the Portkey left and they were suddenly standing in McGonagall's office. The headmistress was still sitting at her desk with the same concerned expression she had been wearing when they'd left earlier.

"Welcome back," she said hurriedly. "May I ask how your father is doing?"

"Er, he hasn't woken up yet, but they said he's going to be fine," Rose said. "I'll let you know when I hear from my mum if you're worried about him, Professor."

"Oh, uh, yes, thank you, Miss Weasley. And do tell your mother that I wish him a fast recovery. If there's anything I can do for either of you…"

"Er, no, thank you, Professor. Good night," Rose said, and Hugo followed her out of the office.

"What did you hear?" Hugo asked the moment they had passed the statue at the end of the headmistress's staircase.

Rose hesitated. "I don't know, Hugo…"

"Yes, you do, you just don't know if you want to tell me. But he's my dad, too, Rose, you don't get to not tell me," Hugo said, stopping in the middle of the corridor.

Rose groaned. "I'll tell you, but we have to keep walking." Hugo shrugged and walked up to her side, looking at her expectantly as she walked on towards the Tower. As she explained what Harry and Hestia had said, Hugo grew more and more nervous-looking. By the time they reached the Fat Lady, he looked ready to explode.

"They're after Uncle Harry?" he whispered in shock.

"Password?" the Fat Lady asked sleepily.

"I suppose. Try not to worry about it too much tonight, Hugo," Rose told him. "Er, mandrake," she added to the Fat Lady, and the portrait swung open. They stepped into the common room. Rose looked around and saw Scorpius passed out on the sofa they had been sitting on earlier. "Go up to bed, we can talk more tomorrow," she told Hugo, and he nodded. He turned around and darted up the staircase, muttering about how he wasn't going to sleep anyway.

The sound of Hugo's feet running up the stairs seemed to wake Scorpius up, because just as Rose was turning to go up to bed herself, he asked, "Is your dad okay?"

She sighed and turned around, walking towards the sofa. "He's fine. Or he… will be. I didn't ask you to wait up for me."

"I know," he said, shrugging. "I wanted to."

"Nott did it," she said. "They're looking for something. Something that'd help them go after Uncle Harry."

Scorpius raised an eyebrow. "Attacking Harry Potter's pretty… ambitious."

"Yeah," Rose sighed. "I don't even want to think about what they're looking for."

Scorpius looked at her. "…Are you all right? You look… tired."

"I am," she said. She glanced at his concerned expression and groaned internally. She couldn't handle this right now. "I… need to sleep. I'll see you in the morning, I guess."

"Okay," he said hesitantly as she got up again and started walking towards the girls' stairs. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, don't worry about me," she said quickly, and hurried up the rest of the stairs.

"If you want to talk about it, you can talk to me," she heard him call after her as she opened her door. Rose practically collapsed on her bed, throwing her bag onto her bedside table. She knew he was trying to help, but honestly she couldn't even think about anything else then, and when she looked at him, she couldn't help but think about a lot of unnecessary things. She didn't have time for any of it. She knew that the quicker she fell asleep, the quicker she could just stop thinking about what happened, but the image she now had in her head of her father in the hospital bed looking far from okay kept her up much longer than she wanted.


	15. The Symbol on the Stone

**Hi everyone! I hope you like this chapter, please review and hopefully there'll be another one in the next day or so. Enjoy! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 15

THE SYMBOL ON THE STONE

"Come on, Al, this is all just stupid. We're literally making this up as we go along," Rose groaned, setting her quill down on the library desk.

"Exactly. It's an easy O. Let's keep going."

"Why can't we do it later?" she asked.

"Well, Scorpius has an O, and I think you're close to slipping into an E so…"

"Fine," Rose said quickly. "What's your prediction then?"

"Er… let's say I had a dream about…I dunno, what sounds ominous? She likes that stuff, I think. Let's go with a run down shack."

Rose sighed and flipped through the Divination textbook. "Was the shack yours, or just a shack?"

"Mine."

"Well, that means that something isn't going to turn out the way you thought it would. Also, dreaming about your own house at all means someone in your family is ill or going to be doing rather poorly, so that's not good either. Maybe cousins count, she thinks I'm going to drop dead, right?"

Al sighed. "Rose, I don't think she actually thinks—"

"No, I know, she's just crazy," Rose said. "But let's predict something really dark for mine. What means death?"

Al took the book and looked through it, frowning. "Well, a coffin means fear of death, but apparently it could also mean you're… going to lose a pregnancy, so let's not do that one."

"Right."

"Er…let's go with a tomb. It's similar and creepy."

"What does it mean?"

"It means that… either you're just plain going to die, or if you're opening the tomb, it means that you're about to uncover something you thought was dead? That's really literal, wait a minute… no, it just means something will be uncovered. Something dark, probably. I don't know. Just write it down."

Rose shrugged and scribbled a short entry about a tomb in her dream journal. "I can't take much more of this. I'm going to drop some of my books off, I'll meet you at dinner, okay?"

"Sure," Al said, and Rose set off for the common room on her own. When she walked through the portrait hole, she noticed that more than a few people looked at her as she passed them and felt like rolling her eyes. Ever since the rest of the school found out about their father from the article in the Daily Prophet two weeks ago, people had been talking about it a bit too much for Rose's liking. While she knew from her mother that he was doing well and had been awake since only a few hours after she and Hugo left, the rest of the school didn't, and the rumors were gaining popularity quickly. Whatever the theory was today, it had caused more than a couple people to grow silent when she walked through the common room, and Rose was a little too hungry and tired to think much about it right then. So she continued up the girls' stairs to her room. However, she was nearly knocked off her feet the second she reached her bed, and found herself planted firmly against the wall by Ana Krum, who looked inexplicably furious.

"What are you trying to do? What does it do?" she asked, shouting, and Rose saw Emma Drake sitting on her bed, looking too shocked to speak.

"I—what are you talking about?" Rose exclaimed, and Ana removed one of her hands from Rose's shoulders to reach into her bag and pull out the stone. Rose's heart dropped into her stomach as Ana held it up.

"This. What are you doing with it?"

"What do you mean? I'm not doing anything with it! I just found it!"

"You expect me to believe that you just found a stone with his symbol on it and—"

"Who? Whose symbol? Who's 'he'?" Rose asked, a flicker of curiosity sparked inside of her notwithstanding the situation.

Ana glared at her evenly. "Don't play dumb, you know who I mean."

"Ana, I promise, I really, really don't."

Ana hesitated, than said, "Grindelwald. He carved it into the walls at Durmstrang and …the people who use that symbol there are the reason my dad made me leave."

"It's… Grindelwald's symbol?"

"It's on the doors to Nurmengard."

"What does it mean?" Rose asked. Ana scoffed.

"It doesn't matter what it meant before, now it means Dark magic, and I know you know that, so tell me what you're doing with it!"

"Do you honestly believe that I'm using Dark magic?" Rose asked incredulously.

"I… I don't know," Ana said. "I'm not taking any chances."

"I need it back, at any rate," Rose said. Ana backed away from her.

"No, I won't give it to you, not until you tell me what's going on."

"Nothing's going on, I just found it. I'll… I'll take it to Professor Rudomin, all right?" Rose said, trying to think quickly, and Ana looked at her hesitantly. "Look, it's still mine, no matter what you think I mean by whatever's on it. Give it back."

Ana hesitated, then let go of her other shoulder and threw the stone at her. Rose caught it as she turned away. "Just get out," she said.

Rose took no issue with that and was quite keen to leave before she remembered the people staring at her when she walked in. "Did you tell anyone about this?" Ana rolled her eyes and shrugged. Rose nodded. "Right." She walked quickly out of the room and down the stairs. When she got into the common room she was met with even more stares, this time more obviously unkind. She saw Scorpius sitting in a chair nearby the portrait hole and he stood up immediately when he saw her. "I'm sure you've heard," Rose muttered.

"Come on," he said quietly, and Rose walked stiffly out of the portrait hole with Scorpius following her. "Have you eaten yet?" he asked.

"No, but I'm not going to the Great Hall now," she said. He nodded and turned to walk the other way.

"Okay, then, you need to eat though," he said, and she followed him, a little confused until they reached the familiar staircase down to the kitchens.

"Really? The elves will be working right now, we can't just go down there," she exclaimed, and he shook his head.

"It's okay, Holly works here now, we'll be fine," he said, and led the way down the staircase. Rose followed halfheartedly as he walked down the narrow corridor and opened the portrait to the kitchens, where a multitude of elves were quickly running desserts from counters onto tables where they quickly disappeared up to the Great Hall. One small elf carrying a cake much too large for her nearly ran into the edge of the Slytherin table and Scorpius ran over just in time to steady the other end of the cake. The elf, who Rose could now see was Holly, grinned widely when she saw who it was.

"Master Malfoy! It's so wonderful to see you! And Miss Weasley!" she added when she saw Rose walk up behind him.

"Hi, Holly, how have you been?" he asked, and she smiled again.

"It's lovely to work here, Master Malfoy, they pay me and they don't punish me for making mistakes like… oh, I shouldn't—"

"No, it's fine, it's true. Hey, Holly, do you have any of the dinner left? Rose and I didn't eat yet, and we'd really rather stay down here right now."

"Oh, yes, of course! I'll go get some now," she said, and scurried away to a hidden part of the kitchens. Scorpius sat down at the table and Rose sat across from him.

"This is nice and all, but you can go and eat with Al," she said. "I'll be fine here."

"No, I'm okay here. Besides, all your cousins really only tolerate me because you do. Al's not as assertive about including me, so it usually doesn't happen when you're not there."

Rose rolled her eyes. "They're all so annoying."

"It's fine."

"No, it's not."

"Yeah, well. It's not fine what Ana's doing, either."

"She's scared. I would be too if I saw the Dark Mark in a foreign country on my friend's bed. That's basically what this is for her."

"Still, though. Was she just not paying attention last year? You're probably the last person that would go Dark in the whole school."

Rose smiled a little. "Tell her that."

"I will." Scorpius sighed. "So… that's what the symbol is? Grindelwald's mark? Does that mean Nott's following Grindelwald's vision or something now?"

Rose shrugged. "Maybe. But I have a feeling he didn't just invent the symbol. Madam Babbling said it was medieval."

Scorpius frowned. "How do you know the Runes teacher?"

Rose shook her head quickly, panicking a little. "I—I don't, I just thought she'd be a good person to ask, so I just— went to her office. It was a little awkward, but she talked to me about it. She didn't really know anything either though."

"Well… even if it's not Grindelwald's it can't be good. I don't like this, Rose. This whole thing."

"Me neither. It's got to be dark no matter what it meant before. I think it would be better to just get rid of it."

He nodded. "We should. We could just… put it back in the forest, right? I mean… bury it?"

"Maybe." Rose thought for a minute as Holly returned with their food, and nodded. "Yeah. As soon as possible. Wait… I told Ana I would take it to Rudomin. Do you think I should? Maybe she's wrong, or maybe he can tell us why it… brings people back."

Scorpius hesitated. "I don't know, Rose. He'd probably have to tell McGonagall, and he'd never let you take it back."

"What about one of the Aurors? Or Barton?"

"Are you mental? All they'll do is interrogate us about how we found it."

"Yeah, I suppose. And James would kill us if we got his cave closed off. All right, we'll bury it. But we have to tell Al first."

"I'll talk to him later." They ate in silence for a minute before he paused. "You're okay, right? I mean, you'll be okay? With your dad, and now this…"

"I'm fine," Rose said, but she knew how unconvincing she sounded.

"You can talk to me," he said quietly. "I know what it's like, you know. For everyone to be talking about you. I know you're sort of used to that, but it's awful when it's not good things."

"Yeah. I suppose you do," she said. "I'll be fine, though."

"Good. Then eat so we can go hide from everyone somewhere warmer, it's freezing in here."

Rose laughed a little and ate. She shook her head a little when she felt the stone in her pocket, as if she couldn't quite shake the feeling that she needed to know what it was. The sooner they buried it, the better off they'd all be, she was sure of it.


	16. Padfoot and Prongs

**Hi everyone! Here's the next chapter-I'm planning on posting one a day until the end of this book, but it might be a couple days every now and then. Anyway, reviews are great, and I hope you like it! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 16

PADFOOT AND PRONGS

Rose left her room on Friday night two weeks later at midnight and crept down to the common room, extremely careful about not waking up Ana. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw Scorpius by the fire and sat down next to him. "Is Al coming?"

"Yeah, I think so. I don't know, I haven't been up there tonight. I told him midnight, anyhow."

"And he's bringing the Cloak?"

"Yes."

"Okay." Rose looked down at the stone in her hand and asked, "Are you sure we shouldn't ask someone about it?"

He shook his head. "We should just get rid of it. Someone else can worry about it. Maybe we can try to have a quiet rest of the year."

"It's February. We aren't lucky enough to avoid trouble for four months."

"That's probably true. We can at least try."

Just then, they heard footsteps on the staircase, accompanied by voices growing louder. Rose looked at Scorpius in disbelief. "He told James."

"You told James?" Scorpius asked as Al and James came down the last few stairs.

"Sorry, but… I thought he should know, before we buried it, and now he's saying—"

"You can't bury it!" James exclaimed. "If—if _James Potter_ came out of it…"

"Ana said it's Grindelwald's symbol," Rose said. "It's the same symbol that was on Nott's cave. It's got to be something really dark."

"Let's just get outside before we wake the whole House," Scorpius said, and Al threw the cloak over them. They walked quickly and Rose could tell that James was having a very hard time not speaking. They stopped short at the entrance hall when they saw the Auror guard.

"Come on," James whispered, and they followed him quickly to a door to the grounds at the end of the corridor. "They always forget to lock this one," he said, and eased it open slowly until they could slip out. They ran down the hill to the Forest and threw off the cloak as soon as they are past the line of trees. "You can't bury the stone. Not yet anyway. I want to use it."

Rose groaned. "James, it's probably really Dark magic—"

"Does it matter what it was created for? I mean, if we're using it for good…"

"How do you know we are? Raising the dead can't be good!" Rose said.

"If you two really felt that way you would've gotten rid of it when you found out what it did," James said. Rose didn't really have an answer to that, so she remained silent, and he smiled a little. "Exactly. Let's go to the cave, we'll be better hidden there."

"How is this happening?" Scorpius whispered as they walked. "We need to bury it!"

"Sorry, guys," Al said timidly, and Rose rolled her eyes.

"He would've probably found out anyway," she said, though she knew that he wouldn't if they had just buried it that night.

When they reached the cave, James stood against the wall and looked expectantly at Rose. She sighed and handed him the stone. "I'm not sure this is the best idea, James," Al said.

"Oh, come on, are you scared?"

"No," Al muttered, and James grinned.

"Good. Okay, then. Three turns, right?" Rose nodded. "Great." James turned the stone and sure enough, the same man appeared once again. Rose hadn't really noticed before how young he looked, as if he was barely older than Teddy.

"Hello again," he said, chuckling a little. "Are you going to drop it this time or can I stay for a bit?"

"Sorry," Al managed, and he grinned.

"You're Albus, aren't you?" Al nodded.

"Yeah, Albus Severus."

"Don't remind me."

"You're really James Potter?" Rose asked, trying not to appear starstruck.

He turned to her. "In the flesh. Well, not exactly. Pleasure to meet you. Rose, right?" She nodded and he looked over at James. "And you're James, right?"

James looked like he might faint, and Rose wasn't sure she'd ever seen him nervous. "Er-um, yeah. Hi."

"Hey—do you want to meet Padfoot? Go on and call him back," he offered. James's eyes widened.

"Sirius Black? Yeah, I… doesn't it just bring back family?"

"No, you can bring back anyone you want," he said. "At least I think so. Anyway, he's practically family."

"Okay," James said, and he turned the stone three more times. Another man appeared, significantly older than the other, with long shaggy black hair, also grinning.

"Finally! I knew they'd find it, Prongs. Harry's boys," he exclaimed, grinning.

"Well, actually, Rose was the one who found the stone," Al said.

"Oh, Hermione's daughter. That doesn't really surprise me, actually," he remarked, and smiled at Rose. She couldn't help but smile back, and Sirius's eyes flickered over to Scorpius.

"Scorpius Malfoy, is it? I've seen you with Al," he said. Scorpius nodded. "You ran away, that right?"

"Yeah. Well, I was disowned, but I did leave."

Sirius nodded. "I have to say, I like him, Prongs," he remarked to the elder James. The younger James Potter seemed a little put out that his heroes liked Scorpius and broke in.

"I found your map in my dad's study. I have it now."

Sirius grinned. "We know. You stole it. Very craftily, I might add, good job."

"You stole it? You said it was a gift!" Al said. James shrugged.

"Sorry, Al, but you got the Cloak and I didn't want you to feel bad that Dad didn't give me anything."

"We have to say, though, I think you show a lot more potential than you're really displaying at the moment," the older James said.

"Oh, great, he needs encouragement," Rose said, rolling his eyes. Sirius laughed.

"I would, but Fred's being a prat," James muttered.

"So find another Marauder or talk some sense into him," the other James suggested.

"Yeah, you and Harry could cause so much more trouble, it's really a bit sad. And Roxanne's pretty impressive, too. Just think about it," Sirius added.

"Can you… see us? Like… all the time?" James asked.

Sirius chuckled. "If we want to. But we don't watch all the time."

"That girl of yours is pretty, if that's what you mean," the older James added, grinning.

"So was Zoe. And Jenny…" Rose muttered, and Al snickered.

"There's nothing wrong with having a few girlfriends," the other James remarked.

"While you wait," Sirius muttered. "For Lily."

"Shut up, Padfoot."

"Or Alice," Al said pointedly, and the younger James coughed self-consciously. Suddenly, they heard footsteps pushing through the Forest. Al's eyes widened and he glanced at Rose.

"Er, we should go, someone's coming," she said, looking at the younger James expectantly.

"Call us back anytime," the older James said, and James Sirius gave the stone back to her just as Hagrid appeared in the mouth of the cave.

"What are you lot doing out here? Do you know how much trouble you'd be in if anyone saw you?" he asked them. "Nearly gave me a heart attack, I thought it was them Death Eaters."

"Sorry, Hagrid," Rose said.

"Yeah, but we've got my dad's Cloak. No one will see us," Al said. Hagrid's eyes narrowed.

"That cloak's nothing but trouble, I tell you," he muttered. "Now get on back to the castle before someone sees you."

"Good night, Hagrid," James said, grinning, and Al threw the Cloak over the four of them.

"That was brilliant!" James exclaimed when they were back in the common room. "You can't get rid of it now, Rosie!"

"Why not?" she asked indignantly. "You got to talk to who you wanted to."

"Not everyone I wanted to! What about our grandmother?" James argued. "Maybe Lily wants to talk to… Lily. And what about everyone else? Teddy might want to see his parents. Uncle George could talk to Uncle Fred. Hell, my dad might want to see his parents, and Sirius… This is the best thing that's ever happened to us and you want to get rid of it?"

Rose considered it for a moment. Maybe it wasn't fair for her to keep it from the rest of their family. "We still don't know what we're doing. We could be doing more harm than good."

"Come on, Rosie, it's just a stone," he groaned.

"I don't think anyone should use it again until we figure out what it is," she said firmly. James rolled his eyes.

"All right, fine. Figure it out soon, though. I want to tell Teddy when we go home at the end of term."

"We'll try. We've got more of a lead now with the Grindelwald thing," Rose said, and James nodded.

"Start looking tomorrow, then. I'm going to bed. See you tomorrow," he said, and walked quickly up the staircase.

Scorpius rolled his eyes. "That really could have gone better."

"But we did get to talk to James Potter and Sirius Black," Rose said. "Even though they basically told him to be more… him."

"Yeah, but they didn't hate me," Scorpius added. "Maybe that'll make him see reason."

"Don't count on it," Rose said.

"Well, we should go to bed too. Quidditch in the morning. We'll see you tomorrow, Rose," Al said. "Let's go, Scorpius."

"Night, Weasley," he said as he followed Al up the stairs.

"Good night, Malfoy," she said, smiling, and shoved the stone back in her pocket before hurrying up to her room.


	17. The Quidditch Match

**Hi everyone, thanks so much for reading! I love to hear from you, and I hope you like the chapter! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 17

THE QUIDDITCH MATCH

The next day, Rose's morning didn't work out like she had hoped. The light snow that had been falling the night before had turned into a disgusting rainy snow mix, and she woke up to get ready for the match much earlier than she would have liked. After a quiet breakfast of dreading the match to come, Rose walked with Al and Scorpius down to the Quidditch pitch. When they entered the locker room, they were surprised to find Tom Wood sitting with Alice, Roxanne, and Hugo.

"What are you doing here, guys?" Al asked, just as confused as Rose was.

"They're our substitutes," Tom explained. "I checked the rules, and it's allowed in bad weather conditions—I think this qualifies. But I'm only subbing someone in if one of you absolutely can't play. So try not to need one, all right?"

"Hugo, don't tell me you're a Beater substitute," Rose said anxiously. He grinned in response.

"That's what I tried out for, so yeah, I am!" he exclaimed. He looked much too excited for Rose's liking, and she hoped above all else that Harry and Fred lasted the whole game.

Soon the rest of the team arrived and Tom began to speak about strategy. Rose listened as closely as she could, but the cold air inside the locker room was reminding her all too clearly of what conditions she was about to play in. Before long, they heard Alana's voice booming throughout the stadium and stood waiting at the exit to the pitch.

"Hello everyone and welcome to the sixth game in the 746th Hogwarts Quidditch season! I'm Alana Jordan, your commentator this morning, and today's match is the current Cup leader, Gryffindor, against Ravenclaw!" There was loud cheering from the stadium and Alana continued. "And here comes the Ravenclaw team, led by seventh year Captain and Keeper Ryan Belby. Following him is fourth year Seeker Gideon Grey, and Chaser fifth year Maria Goldstein. The other Chasers have just emerged, fourth years Zoe Chang-Li and Lucy Weasley, and finally Beaters, fifth year David Corner and sixth year Joshua Clearwater." The Ravenclaw seats cheered enthusiastically and Tom turned to face the rest of the team.

"All right, let's go," he said, and they emerged onto the pitch. Scorpius grimaced at Rose as they were immediately hit with even colder air and more of the sleet that was quickly starting to feel more like hail. Gryffindor cheered nonetheless when they emerged and Alana sounded considerably more excited announcing their names. "And here comes Gryffindor, led by sixth year Captain and Chaser Tom Wood! Fifth year Keeper James Potter follows him, along with the Beaters fifth years Harry Longbottom and Fred Weasley! After Longbottom and Weasley comes third year Chasers Scorpius Malfoy and Rose Weasley, and the last of the team to emerge is third year Seeker Albus Potter, arguably even more handsome than his brother—sorry, Professor—anyway, the Captains are approaching the center of the field, where Madam Hooch waits with the Quaffle. Captains shake hands…" Rose watched as Belby and Wood shook hands and stared each other down with much more seriousness than you would expect from a school match, and Hooch blew her whistle. Rose mounted her broom and flew up until she was hovering above the ground, and watched Hooch carefully. After a few seconds, she threw the Quaffle up, and Scorpius descended on it before anyone else reached it. He bolted towards the Ravenclaw goals, but stopped short when Zoe Chang-Li started to block his path. He looked around frantically as David Corner seemed to be aiming a Bludger towards him, and Rose thought quickly.

 _Pass me the Quaffle! I'm on your right!_

His head snapped to the right and saw her. Without hesitation, he threw the Quaffle at her with a good deal of force, and when she caught it she nearly was knocked off her broom. Before the Ravenclaw Chasers that had been pursuing Scorpius could turn around, she had gone wide around Corner and threw the ball at the right goal. Belby dived towards it but only clipped it with the tip of his fingers before it passed through the goal. "Gryffindor scores!" Alana exclaimed and Rose swooped back to the Gryffindor side as the students in the stands cheered.

 _Weasley? Did you just use this for Quidditch?!_ Rose groaned when she heard Scorpius's thoughts in her head again.

 _I guess._

 _I thought you said we shouldn't use it for unimportant stuff._

 _…I'm very competitive, Malfoy._

 _Yeah, I know._

Belby threw the Quaffle to Lucy and she started to fly towards the Gryffindor score. Rose tried to get into a position to block her but then heard Alana announcing, "Fred Weasley winds up with a Bludger aimed at Lucy Weasley—" and flew down to leave room, but Lucy dodged the Bludger and threw the Quaffle at the center goal. James caught it and immediately threw it back out to Tom. At that moment, Rose noticed a very fast movement out of the corner of her eye and heard Alana shouting, "And Al Potter sees the Snitch, Grey tries to catch up!"

Zoe and Maria Goldstein were blocking Tom's path into the Ravenclaw side of the pitch, and Rose tried to move closer to give him someone to throw it to when suddenly she felt something slam into her side. She felt herself knocked off of her broom and grabbed the tip with one hand just as she was about to fall completely off. She couldn't hear exactly what Alana was shouting, as all she could her was her heart pounding in her ears. She felt her weight tipping the broom and it started to dive towards the ground. She struggled to get back onto the broom before she collided with the ground, and about six feet from the ground she finally regained control and pulled up just in time. However, it was still unstable, and she fell off after a few seconds again, this time tumbling to the ground. She could hear people running onto the pitch as she tried to get up and brush the sticky snow off of her robes. When she sat up she saw that the professors hadn't run onto the pitch to reach her, but to reach Gideon, who was clearly the one who'd hit her. Tom landed and Hooch blew the whistle, signaling a pause in the game.

"Rose, I'm taking you out," he said.

"What? No, I can play," she insisted. He shook his head.

"McGonagall won't like it if I make you keep playing. Go get Alice to take your place. Sorry, Rose," he said, and he flew back up to the rest of the team. Rose, sulking, walked off the pitch, holding her broom above the snowy mush on the ground. She passed the Hufflepuff stands on her way and heard a few first years talking as she walked by them.

"Did you see that? She just jumped in front of Gideon, it's like she wanted to knock him off his broom."

Rose felt her ears turning red with a combination of embarrassment and anger and she started to walk more quickly towards the locker room, and she practically threw open the curtain inside. "You're in, Alice," she muttered, and sat down on the bench. Alice looked startled.

"Why? What happened?" she asked.

"I… fell. I'm fine, though. Tom wants you to go out, so…" Rose told her, and she shrugged and walked out with her broom.

"You fell and didn't get hurt?" Roxanne asked.

"Well, I had my broom but yeah, I fell," Rose said.

"You seem pretty angry, are you okay?" Hugo asked.

"I'm fine. It's not about that," Rose muttered. Roxanne and Hugo exchanged a look and Hugo shrugged.

"Okay." Just then, Alana started to speak again.

"All right, everyone, we're getting started again. Rose Weasley's fine, but Alice Longbottom's entering the match as her substitute. Also, Gideon Grey is going up to the hospital wing, and Lily Potter will be substituting for him for the rest of the match." Rose looked up in alarm and looked at Roxanne and Hugo.

"Did you guys know Lily's—?" she asked them, and they shook their heads.

"I mean—I know she's good. We'd play when all of you were at school," Hugo said. "I didn't know she's a Seeker though."

"She's a Potter," Roxanne snorted. "They're not going to have a Potter in their House without trying to get her in at least one match, they'd have to be mad not to." Hooch's whistle sounded and the match continued on. After a few minutes the back door into the locker room opened and Professor McGonagall entered.

"Miss Weasley, are you all right?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, is Gideon okay?" Rose asked.

McGonagall nodded. "He has some minor injuries but Mrs. Longbottom is more than capable of handling it." She hesitated a bit then and said, "May I speak to you privately after the match, Miss Weasley? My office, perhaps?"

Rose glanced at Hugo, who was looking at her, confused, and said, "Er, yes, of course, Professor."

"Good. I will see you then," McGonagall said, and she left through the same door. Roxanne jumped up as soon as the headmistress had left.

"McGonagall wants to see you?" she asked. "That sounds terrifying."

"Except that it's Rose," Hugo pointed out. "She's probably getting some award or going to be the youngest prefect ever or something."

Rose couldn't help but be a little offended. "I've caused more than my share of trouble! Just because I get good grades—"

"Yeah, but Scorpius or James always drag you into it," Roxanne said.

Rose shrugged and said, "Well, I don't think I've done anything this time, so let's hope I'm not in trouble."

Roxanne looked confused. "James said you had something to tell us, though. Something 'really cool', apparently."

Rose couldn't believe her cousin. "No, I don't. He's just being stupid. There's nothing to tell."

Roxanne looked unconvinced, but nodded. Rose started to listen to the commentary again until the game finished. Lily apparently was quite the Seeker, since it only took another twenty minutes or so before she caught the Snitch and Ravenclaw won the game, 170-30. When the game was over, the rest of the team came sulking into the room and Scorpius and Al sat down next to Rose and Hugo, Al looking especially defeated.

"I was beat… to the Snitch… by my little sister," he whispered in horror.

"That was horrible," Scorpius muttered. "This might be the worst day ever."

"I fell from the sky into the snow!" Rose exclaimed. "This is _your_ worst day ever?"

"Whatever, Weasley," he muttered.

"Let's just go eat lunch, I'm starving," Al said.

"Can't," Rose said. "I've got to go see McGonagall."

"Why?" Al asked, startled.

"I don't know. She asked me to come to her office after the match. I should probably change first, though, I've soaked through my robes."

"Let us know how it goes," Al called after her as she left through the back door and walked up towards the castle.


	18. The Story of the Hallows

**Hi everyone! Thanks so much for reading, and please review, I really appreciate feedback! Thanks! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 18

THE STORY OF THE HALLOWS

Rose walked into McGonagall's office to find the headmistress was seated at her desk, waiting for her. "Miss Weasley," she said. "Please come in. Sit down."

"Thank you," she said slowly, sitting down at a chair on the opposite side of McGonagall's desk. "Er, what's this about, Professor?"

"How are your classes going?" she asked, and Rose knew she probably looked startled.

"Er, good. Very well."

"And the Time Turner's been going well?" she asked.

"Yes," Rose said.

"No one knows about your use of it?"

"No, Professor, I've been very careful."

"Good," she said. "The work level hasn't been too demanding, I trust?"

Rose hesitated. "It's… intensive. I've been handling it fine, though." McGonagall nodded slowly.

"Well, Miss Weasley, I've been instructed to tell you before we begin scheduling for next term that the Ministry of Magic is no longer able to grant permission to any underage witch or wizard to use a Time Turner. They have decided that it's too dangerous, considering current events."

Rose was confused. "But—my mum had one, and that was in the middle of a war."

McGonagall hesitated. "The Ministry isn't entirely convinced that we aren't about to be, Miss Weasley."

Rose's eyes widened. "Do you believe that, Professor?"

McGonagall shook her head. "I can't be sure. Though I can't deny that the escaped Azkaban prisoners has made many people very concerned. And the Ministry has decided they are taking no chances. They'll allow you to finish the term, however, you must turn it in at the end of the year."

"But it's my mother's," Rose argued. "Can't I just give it back to her?"

"I'm not sure," McGonagall said. "I believe she would know, as her department had a part in deciding this new law. She would know more than I do." Rose nodded. "So, you will need to abandon one of your elective studies in your fourth year."

Rose immediately said, "Divination." McGonagall smiled slightly.

"I thought you might say that. Well, that's done, then."

"Is that all, Professor?" Rose asked. McGonagall looked at her and shook her head.

"Not quite. It's come to my attention that you've been researching the markings from the incident in the Forest last year." Rose clearly looked very alarmed because McGonagall added, "You're not in trouble, Miss Weasley. I only wish to offer some clarity, since the several different versions of the story I've heard amongst the student body is enough to make one's head spin. I believe Anastasia Krum has told you that the symbol belonged to the Dark wizard Grindelwald?"

"Yes, Professor. Although Madam Babbling told me it was a medieval symbol."

"Well… they're both correct, in their own way. I must confess something, Miss Weasley; I wasn't very truthful with you last year when I told you that I didn't know the symbol. The symbol has a long, complicated history behind it, and I'm honestly shocked that you haven't already heard it from your parents."

Rose's curiosity was peaked then. "Does it have to do with them, Professor?"

"Yes, Miss Weasley, it 've probably been told the Tales of Beedle the Bard as a child, correct?" Rose nodded and McGonagall continued. "The symbol is connected to the last tale in the collection, the Tale of the Three Brothers. I trust you know the story."

"Yes."

"There were some throughout the years that believed the story was not simply a fairytale, but that the brothers had lived and created the items in question. These people believed that the three objects formed the Deathly Hallows, and made the owner of all three the Master of Death. One such person was Albus Dumbledore. Another was Grindelwald." She paused and glanced at the portrait of the old headmaster, who was currently napping quietly in his chair. She nodded to herself and continued. "Grindelwald and Dumbledore knew each other when they were young. They shared their interest in the Hallows and Grindelwald used Dumbledore to gain power for himself, believing that he could become Master of Death if he found the objects. Even after Grindelwald left him, Dumbledore retained his interest in the Hallows, and encountered one of them through James Potter." Rose's eyes widened as McGonagall went on. "Mr. Potter's Invisibility Cloak proved to Dumbledore that he had been right, and the Hallows were real. He came upon the Elder Wand as well, becoming master of it, and towards the end of his life he also discovered the Resurrection Stone." Rose's stomach dropped as she realized what this meant. "When Dumbledore died, he left the Resurrection stone to Harry Potter and a copy of the collection of stories in question to your mother, in order for them to discover the Hallows themselves."

"Did they?" Rose asked.

"Yes. By the conclusion of the war, your uncle was in possession of all three Deathly Hallows."

"So… he's the Master of Death?"

"Well, no. He gave up two of the three Hallows after the war, and only kept the Invisibility Cloak, since it was a family heirloom of sorts." McGonagall looked at Rose carefully. "So I suppose you can tell Miss Krum that there's no longer any issue."

"Yes," Rose said, trying to ignore the fact that her ears may or may not have been turning red. "Thank you, Professor."

"Unless there is something you need to tell me, Miss Weasley," she said, looking at her expectantly.

Rose hesitated. Should she tell her what she'd found? She would never let her keep it, let alone use it, and even though she knew how much power it held she knew everyone else would be furious with her if she told the headmistress about it. "No, Professor, nothing. I was just curious because I saw it on Nott's cave. Does this mean he's… interested in the Hallows?"

"Most likely," McGonagall said. "It's a concerning thought. Well, if that's all, I won't keep you, Miss Weasley, I'm sure you have studying to do."

"Yes," Rose said, glad to be out of the room. "Thank you again, Professor." She left as quickly as she could without seeming suspicious, and practically ran the rest of the way back to the Great Hall. When she got to the table, she immediately sat down next to Al and Scorpius and said, "You'll never believe what McGonagall just told me."

"What happened?" Al asked.

"Remember Beedle the Bard? You know, Fountain of Fair Fortune and the like?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Do you remember the last one in the book? The Three Brothers?"

"Oh, yeah, that one gave me nightmares when I was little," Al said, shuddering.

"Er, not the one about hearts getting ripped out?" Scorpius asked incredulously.

"You were afraid of the Hairy Heart?" Al asked, laughing, and Scorpius looked embarrassed.

Rose looked at them both sternly and they shut up. "Anyway, do you remember the stone in the story that brought back the second brother's fiancé?"

Al nodded, confused, and then his eyes widened. "Bloody hell."

"They're real. They're called the Deathly Hallows. The brothers were real, too, as far as McGonagall knows, and they made the wand, the stone, and the cloak themselves. That's what the symbol's about. Guess who the last person to have them all was?" The other two were silent and she said, "It's your dad, Al. Your Invisibility Cloak's the cloak from the story too."

"Seriously?" Al asked. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"We have the stone from a literal fairytale?" Scorpius asked, looking alarmed.

"Yes. And it has something to do with the Second Wizarding War. And Albus Dumbledore. He wanted them too. I don't know all the details about either, though, I could tell that McGonagall wasn't telling me everything."

"Wait," Scorpius said. "Why was she telling you all of this? Did you tell her about the Stone?"

"No! She heard from everyone who thinks I'm Grindelwald's newest follower that I had the symbol or was looking for it or something. She didn't know I had the Stone." She decided to omit the part where Rose felt very much like she actually did know, but wasn't saying so.

"Good," Al said, sounding relieved. "We need to tell James about this."

"Yeah," Rose said. "It also means Nott must be after the Hallows, though. It makes sense; McGonagall said that whoever owns all three of them is the Master of Death."

"What does that even mean?" Scorpius asked.

"I don't know, but it sounds like something a Death Eater would want," Rose said grimly. "Do you think that's why he's looking for your dad? Maybe Nott thinks he still has them." Al and Scorpius exchanged a look and Rose asked, "Am I missing something?"

"Ariana showed us her copy of the _Prophet_ when we first got here. It said that Nott was spotted with some of his followers in Liverpool last night."

"Liverpool?" Rose asked. "But… he was in Cardiff."

"If he's going after your uncle, he's going the wrong way," Scorpius said.

"So he's going north," Al said. "Who do we know that's north of Liverpool?"

"Well, there are some old wizarding families in Bradford and Leeds, but other than that nothing I can think of," Scorpius said.

"Um… what about Hogwarts?" Rose asked, hearing the obviously nervous tone of her voice as she said it.

"Oh," Al said. "Er… maybe. Wonderful."

"Let's just wait and see the next place he's seen before we get worried," Rose said, but she was already very worried. Especially since, if he is looking for the Hallows, then they were exactly who he needed to find.


	19. Muggle Studies

**Hi everyone! Thanks so much for reading, and reviews are great! Enjoy! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 19

MUGGLE STUDIES

18-4-2020

Dear Mum,

Hello, I hope you and Dad are doing well. Everything's going fine at Hogwarts; other than Divination I still really like all my classes. Gryffindor's in the Quidditch Cup, too. Even though we got beaten by Ravenclaw once, we won the next game and got back in the lead. We're playing Hufflepuff for the Cup in a few weeks. Thanks for your letter about the Time-Turner, by the way; I'm glad I can give it back to you and not just the Ministry, I know it meant a lot to you. Hugo's doing well, too, I'm not sure if he's written to you lately. I should probably warn you, though, I think he's using his owl to help Roxanne sell Collin stuff from the joke shop. I heard Dad's thinking about going back to work soon, is that true? I read it from the Prophet, so I thought I should probably ask you before I trust that. Things are pretty normal, which is a nice change. Say hi to Gran and Granddad for me.

Love, Rose

24-4-2020

Dear Rose,

Hello! It's always wonderful to hear from you, dear. Your dad was very excited to hear about Gryffindor and we both wish you all good luck in the Cup. Hugo has written us, but somehow forgot to mention his business venture, so you can let him know that he should be expecting to hear from us soon. As for your father, it's true that he's going back to work, but he's decided that he's not going to go back to the Auror office. Instead, he's going to start helping Uncle George and Aunt Angelina with the joke shop. He thinks he'll be a lot safer there, though I'm not all that sure about that, knowing Uncle George. Really, though, Rose, he's doing this for you and Hugo; I think this whole thing has made him a lot more aware of the kind of danger he was putting himself in. Anyway, Rose, I'm glad things are well and normal. Gran sends her love.

Love, Mum

When Rose looked up from reading her mother's letter in the Owlery, she saw Hugo walking in, holding a lime green and purple box. He jumped when he saw her. "Rose! Hi," he said, and she eyed the package that Hugo was tying to the feet of Roger, his owl, at that moment.

"Hi, Hugo," she said. "Are you… writing to Mum?"

Hugo hesitated and glanced down at the package. "Er…yep."

Rose shook her head and stood up to go. "You should tell Collin it might take a while for Roger to get to Little Whinging carrying a package," she told him, and Hugo's face flushed red as she walked out giggling a little.

She felt a little guilty about telling her mother that everything was normal, since she still had no idea about the Stone. But nothing was really _wrong,_ technically. James had found out about what the Stone was a few days after Rose did, but he didn't seem to mind; if anything it made him even more interested in the whole thing. He'd even told Harry and Lily, and they'd been talking to the Marauders and Lily Evans for the last couple of months on an almost weekly basis. It worried Rose a little, but she didn't really want to do anything about it unless any trouble started. She didn't want everyone to be mad at her because of one thing. Even so, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

She left the Owlery and returned to the Great Hall just in time to meet Al and Scorpius, who were getting up to leave. The three of them walked to Muggle Studies and were met on the way by Devon Goyle. "Hey, guys," he said.

"Hey, Devon," Al said. "How've you been?"

"Pretty good, I guess. We're having a meeting next week, right?"

"Yeah," Rose said. "You should bring Vincent along."

Devon shook his head. "He won't come. I think he's a little bit scared of you. Because of that thing where everyone thought you went all Dark." Rose rolled her eyes and Devon shrugged. "If it helps, no one in Slytherin really ever believed that. But mostly because you almost got a some of them expelled for just that less than a year ago."

"Yeah, the rest of the school seemed to completely forget that happened," Rose remarked. They entered the classroom and sat down in their usual cluster of seats. Professor Creevey walked in just as the clock turned to 1:00, and she turned to the chalkboard and wrote in large letters across the top:

MAGIC VS. TECHNOLOGY

"Good afternoon," Creevey said, "today we're going to be discussing the topic of our last unit of the year. This lesson starts to tie all the different units we've been doing together—electricity, the branches of science, physics, transportation, communication, and so on. So, we're going to start by filling in a Venn diagram." She turned to the board and drew a diagram, with Magic labelled on one side and Technology labelled on the other. Rose noticed she left a very large section for overlap in the middle. "Can anyone tell me something we can put in the category that only applies to magic?" A few hands shot up, and Creevey called on a Ravenclaw in the front of the classroom.

"Magic is hereditary, you get it from your family," he said, and she nodded and wrote it in the 'Magic' circle. The next student she called on was a Hufflepuff girl in the corner.

"Er, magic doesn't have to go by laws of physics," the girl said. Rose frowned and raised her hand. Creevey was writing it on the board, not seeing her, and she attempted to raise it higher.

"Professor, I think Rose Weasley's going to explode," a Hufflepuff boy in the back of the class said, and some people chuckled as Rose lowered her hand a little. Creevey turned around and looked sternly at the boy before addressing Rose.

"Yes, Rose?"

"Well, magic does have to obey laws of physics, Professor," she said. "It has its own laws, but they have to do with physics. Like laws of conjuration and the fact that you can't transfigure everything or create things out of nothing according to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration."

Creevey smiled. "You're right, Rose, that should go in the shared characteristics area. And five points for Gryffindor."

Al tapped her on the shoulder and she turned to face him, looking at her gaping. "Gamp's what? When did we learn that?" he whispered.

"Transfiguration," she whispered back. "You were asleep."

"Okay, can anyone think of anything that only applies to technology?" Creevey asked. Scorpius raised his hand, to Rose's surprise. "Scorpius?"

"Er, anyone can use technology. We can use it, but they can't use magic, so… technology's for everyone?" he said, sounding like he was unconvinced himself, but Creevey nodded.

"Very good point, yes. Anyone else? Just shout them out, come on."

"Magic's affected by emotions. And the mental state of the person using it."

"They're both kind of dangerous when they aren't controlled well."

"Both of them have to be channeled through something to serve a specific purpose," Rose suggested.

"Technology, at least electricity and stuff, is really really new," Al said. "Magic's ancient."

"Technology's more physical than magic."

"They both work almost instantly when you use them."

"They're both used for pretty much the same stuff," Al said. "Talking to people, transportation, making daily tasks easier, it's all the same reasons for using both."

"Did everyone hear that?" Creevey asked the class, as she wrote it down in the middle section which Rose noticed had nearly twice the amount of answers in it than either of the other sections. "You're completely right, Albus, five points for Gryffindor. Can anyone guess what that means? Any final thoughts about that?"

The class was silent for a moment before Devon Goyle timidly said, "I think—well, the—magic and technology both have—whole worlds built around them that really—depend on them."

Professor Creevey nodded and wrote 'DEPENDENT SOCIETIES' in big letters at the bottom of the middle section. "Five points for Slytherin, Devon, that's excellent." Devon looked extremely pleased and Professor Creevey stepped away from the board to let the whole class see the entire diagram. "I want you to look closely at this diagram, and notice how similar magic and technology are when we really think about them. We only really came up with a few differences. So, our last unit this year is going to be talking about why we consider magic to be superior to technology. Why does the wizarding world think magic to be above Muggle technology when they are so similar and so central to each society? Would anyone like to start the discussion?" The classroom was silent and Creevey smiled. "That's all right, it's a difficult subject to think about. Try to come up with an answer for me over the weekend and we'll continue the discussion on Monday. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves or finish other work for the rest of class."

"Wow," Scorpius said once the classroom had dissolved into several different discussions, "that was sudden. I thought I had to wait for Thursday nights at 8:00 for my worldview to be challenged, but now I can have three more convenient hours a week."

Rose rolled her eyes. "This isn't even that radical. I've heard it loads of times from my mum and my granddad. You just grew up in an environment where mentioning electricity was discouraged and shameful."

"Yeah," he muttered.

"What do we have after this?" Al asked.

"Do you really not know by now?" Rose asked, exasperated. "It's the middle of April."

"Fridays are different! Hold on," he said, rummaging around in his bag and pulling out his schedule. "Arithmancy's next."

"Brilliant," Scorpius groaned. "Ah well, at least we've got Defence after that. I heard we're starting a chapter on vampires."

"Why would vampires be in the curriculum?" Rose asked. "They're not even in this part of Europe."

"What if you go on holiday in Styria and suddenly find yourself alone with Count Dracula?" Scorpius asked, looking as if he was trying very hard to keep a straight face.

"Carmilla's the one in Styria, not Dracula."

"You have to be prepared for anything, Weasley."

"Also, they run out of ideas right about now in the year," Al added.

"Well, yeah, that too," Scorpius said. "God, Arithmancy is dull. It's not like I'm going to sit around when I'm thirty-five and decide what kind of cereal I'm going to eat for breakfast by calculating the numerology of the brand name and how it relates to my 'soul urge' number or whatever."

"Arithmancy is cool, don't make fun of it," Al said defensively. "It's like Divination, but it makes sense. And besides, you need an OWL in Arithmancy to be a Curse-Breaker."

"You want to be a Curse-Breaker? Are you mad? That's practically suicidal!" Rose exclaimed.

"Uncle Bill did it! It sounds amazing, and anyway, you need OWLs in Arithmancy, Defence, Charms, and History of Magic. Sounds like a job for me, those are my best subjects."

"I'm pretty sure you need Transfiguration, too, you know," Rose said. "Maybe you should try to stay awake from now on."

Al rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I'm just ready for classes to be done. James wants to go to the Room of Requirement today, he wanted me to ask you."

Rose sighed. "Why?"

"Sirius said he'd tell us about the battle on broomsticks flying over Bristol next time," Al said excitedly. "Please, Rose?"

Rose sighed. "All right, fine."

"Brilliant! We're meeting there at six." Professor Creevey dismissed them soon after that and Rose followed Al and Scorpius out the door. She started to think about Professor Creevey's question as they walked and came up with her answer more quickly than she'd expected: Wizards think they have much more control over magic than they really do.


	20. The Anniversary Memorial

**Hi everyone! Thanks again for reading, reviews are great, thanks so much! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 20

THE ANNIVERSARY MEMORIAL

On Thursday of the next week, Rose walked into the Great Hall for the Modernist meeting to find Lucy, Stephanie, Ava and Aidan crowded around a newspaper on the table. "Hey, guys, what's going on?" she asked, peering over Aidan's shoulder.

"Nott's been seen in Manchester," Aidan said grimly. "He and one of the followers, they think it was Macnair, attacked a Muggleborn woman. She escaped unharmed, but it's still unsettling."

"He's in Manchester now?" Rose asked, feeling a sinking feeling in her stomach. So he was still going north. For a second, she let herself think Al was right… what would they do if he appeared? They couldn't hide the Stone, where would they even do that? He would look for them until he found them. She shuddered and tried not to think about it.

"Apparently. This isn't good," Stephanie said, shaking her head. "We'd better talk about this during the current events part of the meeting."

"Definitely," Lucy said, nodding. "All right, we're starting at five past eight." By that time, about twenty-five people had sat at their table, which was more than Rose could remember coming in quite a while.

Before the beginning of the meeting, Rose asked Aidan, "Is Lucy planning something or is she just that happy today?" Aidan glanced at Lucy, who definitely looked suspiciously happy, and turned back to Rose.

"Er, she has been that happy all day, I believe, but it could mean that she's been planning something all day. It's difficult to tell with Lucy." Rose nodded, laughing a little, and Aidan asked, "I've been meaning to ask you, Rose, would you help me suggest a Battle of Hogwarts memorial for the grounds? Just a plaque or something of the sort. I happened to notice that there isn't currently anything commemorating it or honoring any of the people who died and since Saturday's the anniversary…"

"Sure, Aidan, we can talk about it at the end when Lucy opens the discussion."

Lucy looked thrilled with the turnout when she started the meeting, and Rose listened quietly to the current events review. When she mentioned the attack in Manchester, Al glanced at Rose with a concerned expression. After talking about that and a ten minute discussion about how wonderful the new Muggle Studies unit was, Lucy and Stephanie called for everyone's attention. "All right, so we've been thinking about trying to do something for a while now, and we think that the end of this year or the beginning of the next one could be the right time. We want to organize a debate, against anyone who wants to go against us, about different social issues, but mostly about the repealing of the Statute of Secrecy." As always when the subject was brought up, any side conversations happening at the table went silent and all eyes were trained on Lucy. Rose noticed with a small degree of discomfort that this included people in the rest of the Hall that were there for study hall. Lucy continued, seeming to barely notice the change. "We think that a debate could really publicize our ideas, and educate a lot of people about each of the issues, especially maybe taking some of the taboo away from talking about the Statute. The thing is, we don't want to misrepresent anyone, so we're putting it up to a vote. Anyone who thinks we should do it, raise your hand." To Rose's shock, about 80% of the group raised their hands. Lucy grinned. "Okay," she said. "Brilliant. We'll take it to McGonagall. Does anyone else have any points they'd like to discuss?" Rose got up with Aidan and presented his memorial idea. She wasn't sure why he needed help, and got the feeling he was just too nervous to stand up in front of that many people by himself. That would explain why he only asked Rose to help him when he saw how many people had come to the meeting. The group approved it, and Lucy said that all they'd need was permission from McGonagall. After a few more proposals, Lucy stood up again. "So a lot of you have been asking about holding more of the defence classes we had started at the beginning of the year, and we want to help everyone know how to defend themselves, so we'll definitely be having a class for everyone who wants one after the meeting next week. And if that's all then the meeting's over, we'll see you next week!" The group started to disperse and Rose was stopped by Aidan to plan the memorial for a few minutes. After he left, she found Al and Scorpius in the entrance hall.

"Did you know she was going to say that? About the debate?" Scorpius asked her.

"No," Rose said. "I kind of thought she was up to something, but no.""I think it's a good idea," Al said, shrugging. "She's right, it'll reach a lot more people if we do this in front of everyone."

"I suppose," Rose said. "I'm a little worried I can't go to Hogsmeade this time—if I'm working on Aidan's memorial idea, that'll be the day."

"Saturday's the anniversary?" Al asked. Rose nodded and he groaned. "I need to write to Teddy, then, if it's going to get to him in time."

"What?" Rose asked.

"James and I write letters to Teddy to cheer him up every year. He gets really weird on the anniversary."

"Well, it's Victoire's birthday, so maybe it'll be different this year," Rose said.

"Yeah, maybe. I should still send him a letter," Al said. "I'll be in the Owlery, okay?" He ran off and Scorpius turned to Rose.

"Do you really have to skip Hogsmeade?" he asked.

"If McGonagall approves it, and I'm sure she will," she said.

"Well, it's Tanner's idea, can't he do it himself?" he asked.

Rose shrugged. "He said he needed help, since he wants little magical flames and he thinks I'm the best at them."

Scorpius rolled his eyes. "He could do it, he just wants to spend time with you."

"No he doesn't!" Rose exclaimed. "Where on Earth did you get that idea?"

"It's obvious, Weasley, he fancies you," Scorpius said. "Why are you so defensive? Do you fancy him?"

"No! Not at all!" Rose said, feeling herself start to blush. "And he doesn't fancy me. Why do you always think that?"

"Just forget it, sorry," Scorpius said, and Rose was almost taken aback by how quickly he backed off. "The memorial's a good idea. Never mind."

"Okay," Rose said slowly. "Right. Let's just go back to the common room." She was glad he'd gotten off the subject as she wanted nothing more than to never talk about fancying Aidan with Scorpius of all people ever again.

On Saturday morning, Aidan found her at breakfast and when most of the others had left for Hogsmeade, they walked out to the side of the lake until they were standing under a large tree. Aidan said, "This is where McGonagall said we could put it."

"Great," Rose said. "Where do you want the fires? Maybe we could still get to Hogsmeade in the afternoon if we hurry."

"Maybe, yeah," Aidan said. "Er, well, I have this plaque but it's not engraved or anything, I can use an Etching Spell, I just thought I should ask you what it should say."

"Um, okay," Rose said, "how about… 'We dedicate this memorial to the fifty-five people who gave their lives to defend this school during the Battle of Hogwarts, 2 May 1998'? Or something, you can deviate off of that if you like."

"Is fifty-five right?" Aidan asked. "That's… a lot."

"They weren't all students," Rose said, "there were people from the Order of the Phoenix and Aurors and such too. A lot of them were students, though."

"Right. Should we add something like 'Memorial established 2 May 2020 by the Modernists'?"

"I suppose, sure."

Aidan took out his wand and began to engrave the message into the plaque. After a few minutes passed in silence he asked hesitantly, "Is it… strange having family who died in the war? It seems like a very long time ago to me, but your uncle was killed, wasn't he?"

Rose shrugged. "I don't think it's strange since I grew up with it, but… yeah, I guess it must be to you. I mean, it is strange thinking about the fact that your parents have Chocolate Frog cards. I try not to think about it too much. I think if I dwelled on it, I'd either end up brooding a lot or… like James, thinking I'm also some war hero or something." Aidan laughed a little and looked back down at the plaque.

"I think it would be better than being from a family that doesn't know or care about your whole world at all," he said quietly. "I mean, you've probably noticed, but I try not to go home much. I've been staying with the Macmillans over the summer for two years now."

"I… noticed. I'm really sorry about that, Aidan."

"I mean, that's why I support Lucy's ideas. Maybe if they'd already known about all this, they wouldn't be so… hostile towards it."

"Maybe. I know that's one of Lucy's main reasons."

Aidan looked down at the ground again and suddenly reached into his bag. "Er, I have this little jar, you can light the fire in there," he said, pulling out the jar, and Rose nodded. It took her a few minutes to get the flames the right size in the jar, and burning in a way that would continue for a reasonable amount of time, but eventually the memorial was complete.

"We should tell Lucy and Stephanie, I suppose," Aidan said. "I believe they went to Hogsmeade, so we could try to find them there."

"Sure," Rose said. She stood up and walked with Aidan towards the path leading to the village. When they were almost there, they heard footsteps and laughing behind them and Aidan looked back quickly before starting to walk significantly faster. "What's wrong?" Rose asked, and looked back herself to find Rosier, followed by Ben Burke and Anna MacDougal, walking down the path more quickly than Rose would have liked. "Brilliant," she muttered, and there was another outburst of laughter from behind.

"Weasley!" Rosier called out. "Got yourself a Mudblood boyfriend, did you?"

"Rosier," Rose said. "I don't think I've seen you since your head was about two feet tall."

The three Slytherins had reached them at this point and Rosier looked less than pleased at what she'd said. "Don't think I've forgotten about that, Weasley," he spat. He looked at Aidan for the first time and snickered. "Nice robes, Tanner. I suppose new clothing's a luxury the homeless lack."

"Shut up, Rosier," Rose said, and he laughed.

"How's your little club going?" he asked them. "Because I heard you're ready to force us all to be best friends with the Muggles."

"How did you know about that?" Aidan asked before Rose could reply.

Rosier rolled his eyes. "You conduct meetings in a public study hall, Tanner, how do you think?" He turned to Rose specifically. "You should be more careful, Weasley. You never know what the consequences could be if you send out a message to the… wrong people." He smiled and walked further up the path, hurrying to be rid of them, with Burke and MacDougal on his heels.

"What did that mean?" Aidan asked nervously.

Rose shook her head. "I don't know, but it can't be good."


	21. The British Representatives

**Hi everyone! Thanks so much for reading, and please review, I really appreciate hearing from all of you. Enjoy! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 21

THE BRITISH REPRESENTATIVES

"I'm not saying I don't think she's… great and everything, I just… I don't want to go out with her, why is that so bad?" Al exclaimed, stabbing his dinner with a fork.

"It's not that you said it, Al, it's that you said it while you were on a date," Rose said.

"We weren't on a date!" he exclaimed. "We were with Blake Collier and Emma Drake the whole time."

"Al, they're dating, it was a double date," Rose told him.

"Wait, really?"

"Why on Earth do you think two friends would go sit in that horrid tea parlor if it wasn't a date?" Scorpius asked incredulously. "There are cats on the walls, it's disturbing."

"No one ever told me it was a date," Al protested.

"What happened?" James asked from a couple people down the table.

"Al made Ariana cry at Hogsmeade," Rose said.

James shrugged. "Girls cry, Al. Move on."

"Girls don't cry if you aren't a horrible person," Rose said pointedly.

"Whatever, Rosie," James said, rolling his eyes.

Suddenly, Scorpius said, "Hey, guys, McGonagall's going up to the podium." Rose looked towards the staff table, and sure enough, McGonagall was calling everyone to silence. She looked… almost nervous, Rose thought.

"Will Rose Weasley, Aidan Tanner, Stephanie Macmillan and Lucy Weasley see me in my office? Thank you." The chatter began to start up again and Rose stood up, confused. "I guess I should go?" she said hesitantly. "It's got to be about the Modernists, right?"

Al shrugged. "Good luck." Rose picked up her bag and walked out of the Great Hall. She saw Lucy and Aidan standing there, talking quietly.

"Do you know what this is about?" Rose asked them.

"No idea," Lucy said. "We're just waiting for Stephanie."

"Do you think we're in trouble?" Aidan asked, nervous.

"We can't be, we didn't do anything," Lucy muttered. Stephanie emerged then, looking just as confused as Rose imagined she did herself, and they started down the corridor to the headmistress's office. When they opened the door at the top of the stairs, McGonagall was sitting at her desk and two serious-looking wizards were seated across from her. They all looked at them as they entered, and one of the men stood up and walked over to them.

"Mr. Davis, what are you doing here?" Lucy asked. He smiled, though it looked mostly forced.

"Hello, Lucy. We're just here to have a discussion. For those of you that don't know me, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Everett Davis, and I'm one of the British representatives in the International Confederation of Wizards. My colleague, Mr. Daniel Clarke, and I would like to have a talk with you all."

Rose looked at Aidan nervously as Davis continued. "You can all have a seat." Rose noticed for the first time that there were four chairs lined against the wall, and they walked over to them.

"Do you know him, Lucy?" she whispered to her cousin.

"Sort of. He's been a representative since I was little but he's never really done anything of note."

They sat down in the chairs and Davis brought his chair down from McGonagall's desk, where McGonagall still sat looking nervous. Clarke moved his chair, too, and they sat facing the four of them. "We understand that you are the officers of the student organization called the Modernists."

"Yes," Lucy said.

"We're here to talk about a certain aspect of your ideals that has been brought to light recently."

"Brought to light by who exactly?" Lucy asked.

"The person in question has asked to remain anonymous. They've told us that your group supports repealing the International Statute of Secrecy. Is this true?"

There was a moment of silence before Lucy said, "Yes. Is there something wrong with that?"

"Actually, Miss Weasley, there might be," Davis said. "It really depends on what comes of these notions. You're free, of course, to hold whatever beliefs you may wish to hold personally. However, when you begin to spread these ideas, they become potentially very dangerous."

"And why is that?" Stephanie asked, looking irritated more than anything else.

"The notions that you're spreading, Miss Macmillan, are… inflammatory," Clarke said. "There's no way to tell what kind of rebellion you could incite."

"We aren't inciting anything, we're expressing an opinion," Lucy said, sounding much more angry now.

"Yes, Miss Weasley, but not everyone that will hear your opinion will think through it rationally. This is why we would like to ask you to stop sharing these views publicly."

"Excuse me?" Lucy said, clearly furious now.

"I'm sorry, Miss Weasley, but there is no way that this can continue safely."

"Are you shutting us down?" Stephanie asked. Clarke shook his head.

"Of course not. However, we do require that you be more closely monitored. And we ask that you refrain from holding any more meetings this term. Next term there will be changes at Hogwarts that are already planned, and we will take care of your situation then as well. It won't be extensive; we merely ask that you have a more… carefully chosen faculty supervisor."

"What's wrong with Hagrid?" Rose asked indignantly.

"Mr. Hagrid seems to be slightly lax in his control of the situation," Davis said. "The new supervisor will be Ministry-approved."

"That's not fair at all," Lucy said. "Since when does the Ministry have a say in Hogwarts extracurriculars?"

"This particular situation has the potential to greatly affect the Ministry, Miss Weasley," Davis said.

"Fine," she muttered. "Fine. But this isn't going to work; you can't make me change my mind."

Davis sighed. "No, we can't. But I urge you to consider what this kind of publicity could do to any future career you may desire. Not to mention the career of your father."

"My father doesn't play a role in my political alignment, Mr. Davis," Lucy spat.

"Yes, I can see that," he said. "Do any of you have any questions?"

Rose was very angry at that point and almost surprised herself when she asked, "Who do you think gives you the right to dictate people's expression?"

Davis looked at her and coughed slightly. "I happen to have been given the right by the international magical community, for your information, Miss Weasley." He addressed all of them next. "Let me make something very clear to all of you. Opposing the Statute is not considered some kind of liberal idealism. It's insurrection. We're being much more lenient than we could be, because you're children. But I advise you to cease all association with this idea. Understood?" The silence from the four of them seemed to speak for itself and Davis coughed again. "Right. Well. You may go."

"I'm going to inform my father about this meeting, Mr. Davis," Lucy said as they walked out. Davis chuckled.

"He'll tell you the same thing I did," he said. Lucy stared at him with a cold expression before turning abruptly and walking out the door forcefully. Stephanie followed and Rose practically stomped out as well, with Aidan following her closely. The second the door slammed shut Lucy was in a rage, and for once Rose was completely at her level of disdain for politicians.

"How dare they? How dare they come in here and tell us we can't think something?!" she shrieked as they descended the staircase."This is completely ridiculous," Rose agreed. "It's probably illegal, too!"

"That's what I think!" Lucy exclaimed. "I would ask my dad, but… Davis is right, he'd probably give me the same story."

"I'll ask my mum," Rose offered. "I mean, she can't believe all that rubbish."

"Good idea, ask your mum," Lucy said, nodding. "Honestly, if there's any way I can get them in trouble for this, I'll do whatever it takes."

"By the way, what did they mean about changes to Hogwarts?" Stephanie asked. "Can they do that? Interfere?"

"Well, yes, probably, it is a sort of state school, after all, correct?" Aidan asked.

Lucy shook her head. "No, it's not compulsory, so probably not. But… I'd bet they have enough influence to interfere anyway."

"Wonderful," Stephanie said, rolling her eyes. "Just wonderful. Remind me to transfer to Beauxbatons next year."

"Can you speak French?" Aidan asked.

"No. It'd still be better than going to Ministry school."

"You're probably right," Lucy muttered. "Still, there are certain things you can do, even in a stifling environment like that."

"You aren't going to let them stop you from opposing the Statute at all, are you?" Rose asked.

"Well… no, of course not. Maybe publicly. But… there are ways," she said, and the gleam in her eye made Rose both excited and nervous at the same time. "I won't make you worry until next term, though. Let's just say that James and I have discussed this situation before. We've got something in mind."

They had reached the Great Hall, and Lucy said, "I have to meet Ava at the library, but I'll see you all soon."

"All right, we'll see you around," Rose said.

"Make sure to get the word out to everyone in the group, we don't want anyone getting in trouble for saying the wrong thing in front of an Auror or something," she added in disgust, then ran up the stairs and out of sight.

"This is completely mad," Stephanie said. "What do you think she's planning?"

"I don't know," Rose said. "I assumed you did."

"Nope. Though if James is involved I'm a little scared."

"I second that," Aidan said. "I'm almost glad we don't have to think about any of this until next term."

"We'll see you soon, Rose," Stephanie said, and the two departed for the Ravenclaw table. Rose sat down at her old spot, and Al looked startled.

"You look like you're going to murder someone," he said nervously. "What's going on?"

"The Ministry threatened us with insurrection charges if we don't stop talking about the Statute in the Modernists," Rose said. "They're shutting the meetings down for the rest of term, and they're going to monitor it next year. Hagrid's not allowed to supervise anymore either."

"You're kidding," Al said, and Scorpius's eyes widened.

"No. I wish I was. The representatives from the International Confederation of Wizards just told us off in McGonagall's office. Rosier told them, I know he did, he said he heard us in the meeting when he was in study hall the other day."

"What did McGonagall say?" Scorpius asked.

"Nothing," Rose said. "It was like she was afraid to. This whole thing makes me sick. And you should have seen Lucy."

"I can imagine," Al said. "So the Ministry's going to be watching us next year?"

"Yeah, and it sounded like not just us either. This is bad," Rose groaned.

"That's not all," Scorpius said, sounding grim. "Nott was seen in Glasgow yesterday."

Rose sighed. As if she didn't hear enough bad news today. "This is not a good day."

"Do you think he's… coming for us?" Al asked nervously.

"He's probably coming for the Stone. So, by extension, yes," Rose said.

"What do we do?" he asked.

"We can't do anything," Scorpius said. "We just have to wait."


	22. The Quidditch Cup Party

**Hi everyone! Thanks so much for reading, please review! I hope you like the chapter! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 22

THE QUIDDITCH CUP PARTY

Rose didn't think she'd ever see anything more hectic than the vast majority of Gryffindor House crammed into the common room with loud music and butterbeer with questionable alcoholic content levels, but she supposed that's what happened when you won the Quidditch cup. She wasn't exactly one for big parties, but as she was part of the Quidditch team, she really couldn't avoid this one. That didn't mean she had to fully participate, however; she was sitting at the edge of the room in a small chair when Al found her, clutching a mug of butterbeer himself.

"Have you seen James anywhere?"

"No, I thought he was with you."

"No. Last time I saw him was in the locker room. He was talking to Fred and Harry about getting the butterbeer. It's really good, by the way, but it tastes a little different. Do you know where they got it?"

Rose sighed. "Probably the Hog's Head, and I really wouldn't drink it if I were you. That funny taste is probably actual beer."

"Oh," Al said, setting it down on a nearby table. "Well, let's hope Rudomin doesn't check in."

"Yeah. This is crazy; how is everyone even fitting in this room?" Rose wondered.

"I don't know. I'm a little scared to run into Ariana."

"I'm actually impressed with how much you've managed to avoid her," Rose remarked. "It's been a week, and we have all but one class with her."

"Don't underestimate my anxiety," Al said seriously. Rose laughed.

"Ah, well, there's always Alana," she said, and Al looked alarmed.

"What? No."

"Come on, Al, she flirts with you in front of the whole Quidditch stadium. All the time."

"Who, Alana?" Min asked, sitting down next to them. "Oh, definitely fancies you, Al."

"No, she doesn't," he said, starting to blush.

Min rolled her eyes. "Whatever. You guys are unbelievable, by the way. You just won the bloody Quidditch cup and you're sitting in the corner. It's a party! Have some fun! Come dance with us," she said.

"No, I don't really dance," Rose said quickly.

"You dance with Scorpius," Al muttered. Rose felt her whole face and ears go bright red and Min laughed.

"What did you say?" she asked sternly, and Al backed off.

"Nothing," he said quietly.

"Thought so."

"Come on, Rose, dance," Min said, and Rose sighed.

"All right, fine," she conceded, and Min looked at Al expectantly.

"Nope. You're way too close to Ariana's friends," he said with a shudder. Min rolled her eyes and ran off, motioning for Rose to follow.

"Well, I got one of them to get up," Min said when they reached Harry, Roxanne, and Emma on the other side of the room.

"Ah, well, at least you tried," Roxanne said.

"Do you know where James is?" Rose asked her, and she looked like she was trying not to laugh suddenly.

"Er… no," she said.

Rose raised an eyebrow. "That wasn't very convincing."

"Er… I've been sworn to secrecy."

"That's more accurate."

"Well, let's think… who else is missing?" Emma asked, looking mischievous.

Rose shook her head. "Stephanie's not in Gryffindor."

"It's James. Who says it's Stephanie?"

"Yeah, you've got a point," Rose sighed. "Who is missing?"

"Er… I haven't seen Tara Mitchell, didn't he have a thing for her in third year?" Min asked.

"I remember that. She's with Daniel Logan, though, I think," Rose said.

Harry suddenly looked very alarmed. "Alice. Alice is missing," he said, and took off running out of the portrait hole.

"Well, this'll be interesting," Min said.

"What's interesting?" Scorpius asked, appearing from who knows where behind Rose and Min.

"Er, James is probably snogging Alice somewhere," Emma said, and Scorpius rolled his eyes.

"That's sort of a given, isn't it?"

"He has a girlfriend," Rose insisted.

"Yeah, well, it's James," Roxanne said. After a few minutes, there was a commotion by the portrait hole, and Harry and Alice stormed in arguing. Following closely behind was James, who seemed to be trying very hard to make the portrait hole close faster while fighting with someone outside of it. The party continued as most people probably didn't even hear anything over the music, and Alice stormed right up the stairs to the girls' dorms. James walked over to them, clutching his jaw, and waved halfheartedly.

"How's the party?" he managed, and Harry walked off to some other area of the room.

"What happened?" Rose asked incredulously.

"Well, er… from the beginning or right now?" James asked.

"From the beginning," Rose said, and he shrugged.

"Okay. Well, uh, right after the match, you know, Alice came in to congratulate us, and after you left with Malfoy and Al I stayed there with Fred and Harry and her for a bit, and Fred and Harry wanted to go up to set the party up so I said go up without me, and Alice told Harry she'd walk up with Tom and I. But Tom left a few minutes later and Alice and I got to talking, and we realized the party had started so we started to go up to the castle, and… I'm going to skip the next twenty minutes because I'm a gentleman—" Roxanne snorted and he shot a look at her before he continued, "So, er, basically Stephanie saw us… so we're done, I think. And Harry punched me in the face. And then Alice got mad at him, so… I think that's all."

"You're an idiot," Min said after a few seconds.

"Yeah, I got that, thanks," James said. "Well… I should probably go talk to Harry." He walked off into the crowd and Roxanne shook her head.

"Unbelievable," she said. Rose nodded.

"Should we really let him talk to Harry? Is he going to punch him again?" she asked.

Roxanne shrugged. "Who knows. Probably not. Hey, by the way, you never did tell me what James said you had to show me."

"Because there's nothing to show, James has got it wrong, I swear," Rose said.

"Are you sure? Because he said it had something to do with that rumor from February about you being all Dark—"

"I don't know what he's talking about," Rose said firmly. Roxanne shrugged.

"Okay," she said, though Rose wasn't sure she was convinced. Soon, Harry appeared again, looking as if nothing had ever happened.

"Are you guys… okay?" Roxanne asked.

"Yeah, of course we are," Harry said, looking a little confused.

"This is mad," Roxanne said, rolling her eyes, and Rose nodded.

"I just don't get what all the fuss is about," she muttered. Roxanne looked confused. "Snogging," Rose clarified. Min laughed.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it can't be worth ruining your relationship," Rose said quietly.

"Er… have you never kissed anyone?" Min asked, grinning.

"No!" Rose said indignantly. "What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing's wrong, it's just… you're almost 14, you know," Min said, but she was laughing and Rose could feel herself start to blush. She had completely had it with this party, and just walked away. "Rose, come on!" Min called after her, and Rose was glad that she could only barely hear her as she opened the portrait hole and walked out into the hallway. She stomped down the corridor and found an empty stairwell, and decided to sit and wait until the party was over.

After a minute or so, however, Scorpius showed up at the bottom of the stairs and Rose sighed. "Just leave me alone," she muttered.

Instead, however, Scorpius walked up the stairs to where Rose was sitting and sat down next to her. "Min's kind of mean sometimes, but she doesn't really mean anything by it. Believe me, I know."

"I just… I didn't want them to know, I'm probably the only person who's never…"

"I haven't," Scorpius said, and Rose looked at him in surprise. "I mean, Lexa tried to kiss me last year but I wasn't going to let that happen."

"I just want to get it over with," she said. "I mean, so no one can make fun of me."

Scorpius was silent for a second, and Rose looked over at him. He was looking at her like he was thinking very hard about something, and Rose said, "Er, Scorpius?"

Suddenly, he leaned over and Rose realized what was going to happen a second before it did, not that she was exactly complaining. He kissed her for probably only about two seconds, but to Rose it felt like forever, and then he pulled back awkwardly and said, "Now no one can make fun of either of us.""Right," Rose managed to say, hoping that she wasn't blushing, and he stood up.

"Are you coming back to the party?" he asked. She shook her head.

"Er, maybe in a little bit. I'm just going to sit here for a while," she said.

"Okay, I'll see you then, Weasley," he said, and walked down the stairs and out of sight.

Rose put her head in her hands the second he was gone. _He didn't mean it like that,_ she told herself. _You can't have wanted him to. You can't fancy him. You can't._

She knew even as she was thinking it that if anything this had only made things worse. "Oh, no," she whispered to herself.


	23. The Duel in Gryffindor Tower

**Hi everyone! I hope you like this chapter, there will probably be one or two more after this one in this book; enjoy and reviews are very much appreciated! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 23

THE DUEL IN GRYFFINDOR TOWER

Scorpius never brought up what happened again, which was honestly fine with Rose, since she wasn't sure what exactly she would say if he asked her about it. She was perfectly fine with ignoring that it ever happened at all, and tried to only think about the upcoming final exams, which over the last few weeks of May were causing her increasing anxiety. By the time she was sitting in the Great Hall in early June she thought her head might explode. She had been forcing Al to study as well, as much as he didn't want to, and when she returned from the bathroom she found her cousin had fallen asleep on top of his books. She looked at Scorpius in disbelief. "You didn't wake him up?"

"We've been here for four hours, Weasley, he can sleep," Scorpius said, shrugging as he continued reading. "He just fell asleep about a minute ago, too. It'd be cruel. Hey, what started the Goblin Wars?"

"Wizards being condescending twats, but that's not exactly what they're looking for," Rose muttered. "Debates over ownership of precious metal resources. Anyway, four hours, really?"

Scorpius nodded. "Yeah, it's nearly 9:00."

"Wow. Okay. Er, we probably should go up to the common room, actually; we can keep studying there, but I'm sure the house elves want to clean up and we're practically the only ones left here…"

"Yeah, let's go," Scorpius said. "Hey, Al, wake up. We're leaving."

"What?" he mumbled sleepily when he finally responded to Scorpius shaking his shoulder. "Oh, we're done? Good. I want to go to sleep…"

"You were just asleep," Rose said, rolling her eyes. "You can't sleep your way into fourth year."

"Shut up, Rose."

After they gathered their things for a minute or so, as they stood up to leave Professor McGonagall ran in looking frantic. She ran right up to them. "You're absolutely sure, Miss Weasley?" she asked gravely. Rose, bewildered, glanced at Scorpius, who shrugged.

"Er, sure about what?" she asked.

McGonagall looked confused. "On the second floor, just now, you told me Nott is coming tonight."

"What? I… don't think I did, Professor, I've been here for hours."

McGonagall looked completely astounded, then seemed to understand something Rose didn't. "Miss Weasley," she said, glancing at Scorpius and Al, "perhaps… perhaps you haven't yet." Her eyes flickered to the chain around Rose's neck and then she understood.

"Oh. Well… I'm sure that I'll be sure, Professor," she said, nodding, and McGonagall nodded as well.

"Yes. Return to your House, immediately." She ran to make the same statement at the podium, and Rose turned to Scorpius and Al.

"Don't ask me how I know, I'm not even sure, but Nott's coming tonight. We have to protect the Stone."

"What? What's going on?" Scorpius said.

"I'm not even really sure, but we have to go. Come on!"

"Do you have the Stone?" Scorpius asked.

"Yes, in my bag," she said, and opened it to look for the Stone. However, on top of all her books lay a slip of paper. She pulled it out and read it, realizing that it was in very familiar handwriting.

 _Leave the Stone in the Room of Requirement. You're going to have to tell them about the Time-Turner._

Rose nodded and said, "We have to leave it in the Room of Requirement, come on." Rose took off running, clutching the note, and she could hear Al and Scorpius following her. When they reached the third floor hallway, she took out the Stone from her bag and paced in front of the wall, repeating in her head, _I need a place to hide something where no one but me will ever find it._ A small door appeared, and Rose ran in. Inside were piles upon piles of random objects, and Rose stuck the Stone behind a statue in a small box. When she turned to go, she found Al and Scorpius staring at her.

"What's going on?" Scorpius repeated.

Rose sighed. "It's a long story, can we talk later? We have to get back to Gryffindor."

Scorpius looked at her carefully and said, "Fine."

"Thank you."

When they reached Gryffindor tower they were some of the last to arrive. Rudomin was standing talking to Molly, and James jumped up when he saw them.

"Nott's coming," Rose said before he could ask. "He wants the Stone."

"Do you have it?" he asked.

"It's safe," Rose said.

"What do you mean?"

"I… can't tell you. It's safe, trust me."

Just then, they heard a loud thud from below. "What was that?" Al asked nervously.

"He's trying to get in. I'd better help the Aurors," Rudomin said quickly. "Molly, make sure no one leaves this room." He ran out of the portrait hole and it slammed shut again as quickly as it could, as if even the Fat Lady was nervous.

"Have you seen Hugo, James?" Rose asked, and just then she saw her brother on the other side of the room. She ran over and said, "Are you okay?"

He nodded, but he seemed scared, and said, "I'm okay. This is kind of like that time on Christmas when we had to stay at Luna's house, right? We're just waiting?"

"Yeah, we're just waiting. It'll be fine," Rose said, though she knew she couldn't know that. Even if all the teachers were helping the Auror guards, Rose had a sinking feeling that Nott and his followers would probably get in eventually. They wouldn't just give up.

"You can see them out this window!" Dylan Finnigan-Thomas called from one of the windows towards the back of the room, and almost immediately most of the House crowded around it trying to see. Rose managed to find a spot where she could see, and kept Hugo away from the window. She saw Nott, along with all the people they'd seen in the Daily Prophet article, and flashes of light flickering between them and two Aurors that Rose didn't recognize and Professor Barton. She felt a little better knowing that there were probably as many professors as possible waiting on the other side, including Professor Rudomin, but she still couldn't help but be scared. Several students gasped when they saw Nott blast Professor Barton against a wall, and shoot ropes out of his wand, restraining him. He got closer to him, and a flash of red light emerged from his wand. Professor Barton looked like he was screaming, though they couldn't hear anything, and finally Nott turned away after he seemed to say something to him. He directed two of the followers into the Forest, and they ran off immediately. One of the Aurors had fallen unconscious, at least Rose hoped, and Nott walked up to the other Auror, who didn't see him as she was battling three of his followers, and a flash of green light from Nott's wand struck her to the ground. Rose knew that it was definitely what she thought it was, as the followers were laughing. Nott stepped over her body and threw the doors open with a bang that reverberated through the castle, and Rose felt her stomach drop when they walked in. They could see flashes of light from inside, but their view was blocked from there.

"The teachers will hold them, they've got to," Molly attempted to reassure everyone, but no one was really listening. A few were still staring at the Auror on the ground, and the rest had formed their own nervous conversations. For the next half hour or so, there was a tense quiet that had fallen over the common room, despite some nervous whispering that still remained. The only loud noises were the occasional bang or thud that echoed from the entrance hall. However, at around a quarter before ten o'clock, the noise softened some and they started to hear footsteps on the staircases. "They're probably not coming here," Molly added. But when the footsteps continued to get louder, Molly sounded nervous when she said, "Can the prefects come up here with me? Everyone else start going up to your rooms, please."

"Hugo, go, now," Rose said, starting to push him towards the boys' staircase.

"What? No, I want to help," he argued. Rose shook her head and pushed him more.

"You're a first year and they're Death Eaters, get upstairs, I'm serious!" she said, and he hurried up the stairs.

"We should go, he's looking for us," Al said, and he was running for the boys' stairs when the portrait hole burst open. Nott stepped through, followed by a follower that Rose recognized to be Dolohov, looking around the room. One of the prefects attempted to stun him but he blocked the spell without even looking.

"Albus Potter?" he said, sounding already angry. "Rose Weasley, too, and Malfoy. Show yourselves, don't be cowards. I know you're here; Barton said you were in the Forest but he was clearly a liar." Rose was hoping he wouldn't see them, but just then he made eye contact with her. She realized it was pointless now and walked out from the middle of the crowd. He smiled a little. "Give me your bag. Now."

Rose hesitated, and he seemed to do a nonverbal summoning spell, since the bag went flying off of her shoulders and into his hands. He started rummaging through it, throwing books this way and that, and threw it on the ground in frustration. "Potter! Potter, where are you?"

Al walked up, already holding out his bag. He did the same thing with Al's bag, then with Scorpius. "Where is it?" he growled. "Where've you put it?"

"Put what?" Rose asked.

"Don't play dumb, girl, you filthy blood traitor, I know you have it! He probably asked you to hide it for him, big mistake, I'll find it, I will, I'll find it…""We don't have anything for you, really, we don't," Rose said, and he walked up to her and held his wand up to her throat.

"Hey!" Scorpius called out, and Dolohov Stunned him immediately. At this point, no one was moving, all seeming transfixed on what was happening in front of them.

"I know that you do," Nott spat. "Tell me where it is or you'll be sorry."

"Expelliarmus!" James shouted, and it must have surprised Nott, because it worked. Dolohov, however, grabbed James before he could do any more damage and threatened him with his wand.

"Should I Disarm him?" he asked Nott, and Nott shook his head.

"No. No," he said, picking his wand up from the ground. "If the boy wants a duel, he's got one."

"Fine," James said, staring him down.

"James, don't be stupid," Molly hissed.

"Silence!" Nott roared. "Antonin, please keep the brats at bay while I deal with Potter. The rest of them can go." The rest of the House ran up the stairs, though Rose could see a significant amount standing on the balcony and in the doorways at the tops of the staircases, watching. Molly stood firmly in her place, despite the fact that she was shaking, and Dolohov glared at her until she followed the rest of the House, but stayed at the top of the stairs.

"Wands," Dolohov demanded, and Rose and Al handed him theirs. He took Scorpius's wand himself, as he was only just starting to come around.

"Bow, Potter, didn't anyone ever teach you dueling manners?" Nott sneered. James only nodded his head a bit, and Nott shook his head as he bowed. "Very well. Challenger casts first."

" _Incendio!_ " James shouted, and flames burst from his wand. Nott produced a stream of water and successfully blocked the spell.

"You're announcing your next move, I'm always going to know what to do, Potter," he said, and added, " _Expelliarmus_."

" _Protego!_ " James shouted, and the Shield Charm worked. Nott looked annoyed and before he reacted, James called out, " _Oppugno!_ ", pointing his wand at the books from Rose, Al, and Scorpius's bags, and a slew of papers and books flew at Nott, who ducked to avoid some of the onslaught but got struck by some materials nonetheless. James looked pleased with himself and Nott chuckled. "I handed you that one."

"Don't go easy on me," James said, smirking, and Nott sighed.

"Very well. _Crucio!_ " he shouted. The red light blasted through James's Shield and Rose winced as he crumpled to the ground. Al gripped tightly onto her sleeve as Nott laughed and walked over to him. "Get up, Potter, finish this."

Suddenly, Rudomin came through the portrait hole and sent a silent Stunning Spell at Nott, who fell to the floor. Dolohov whirled around, but before he could do anything, a voice called out, "Stupefy!" and he fell down as well. Molly stood a few steps down from the top of the stairs, wand outstretched, shaking just as badly. Rudomin regarded her and said, "Well done, Miss Weasley." He turned to James and said, "Are you all right, Mr. Potter?"

"I'll be fine," James managed, sitting up. "Arsehole," he spat, eyeing Nott.

"I'll restrain them," Rudomin said. "And I'll take them to a safer location until this is over. Everyone stay put, understand? We'll have someone look at you to make sure you're all right once we've apprehended all the followers, Mr. Potter."

"Someone should look at Malfoy, too," he said, "he got Stunned."

"Right. Is everyone all right otherwise?" Rudomin asked, and there was silence.

"Well, can we have our wands back? Dolohov has them," Al asked. Rudomin searched through his coat and produced their wands, handing them back. He then produced ropes from his wand and tied up Nott and Dolohov, then levitated them.

"Wait here," he said sternly. They nodded. Rudomin floated the two men out of the room and shut the portrait hole firmly behind him.


	24. The Time-Turner

**Hi everyone! It's getting close to the end, only one more chapter after this; the fourth book will probably start at the beginning of next week, as long as I can get the last chapter up tomorrow. Please review, I really love to hear suggestions, reactions, anything! Thanks so much! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 24

THE TIME-TURNER

After about a half hour, Rudomin returned to say that all was well and the Ministry were on their way to take the followers to Azkaban, with the exception of Nott and Dolohov, who had vanished during the battle. As soon as they were told to go to bed, Rose knew that there was still work to do. "Come on," she said to Al and Scorpius, and they followed her into a hallway off of the common room leading to the toilets.

"What's going on, Rose?" Scorpius asked, and she sighed.

"You know how I wanted to take four electives this year?" He nodded. "Well, I have been. With this," she said, and pulled the Time-Turner from under her shirt.

"You've got a Time-Turner?" he asked, sounding shocked and impressed at the same time. She nodded, and Al shook his head.

"That's the one your mum gave you for Christmas that year, right?"

"Yeah. I've been taking Runes with it. But I think there are some things we need to do now." She undid the chain as much as she could, and got all three of their heads inside it by huddling in closely. She checked the time, 10:38, and turned it back two times. The world seemed to go very dark, as usual, and she felt herself being pulled backward a bit more than she was used to, going back two hours instead of one. Suddenly, they were standing in the same room, but the last remnants of sunlight were still streaming through the windows.

"What did you just do?" Al asked.

"It's 8:38 p.m.," Rose said. "We've got to help Barton tell Nott where we aren't."

"Could you stop being so bloody cryptic?" Al muttered as she led them out of the common room. They ran down the stairs and out the front doors of the castle. The Auror guards didn't question them, luckily, and Rose walked down the hill, being very careful to pass the only windows of the Potions hallway that were above ground as they walked into the trees.

"Al, your Cloak's in your bag, right?" Rose said, and Al nodded, pulling it out. "Brilliant. We need to put it on."

"Why?" Al asked as they walked back across the grounds. Rose realized they couldn't exactly walk back in through the front doors, and walked around to the always unlocked back door James had shown them earlier in the year.

"So Barton thinks we're still in the Forest. He gave us up to Nott, remember? That bought us time. Because he did see us, but it wasn't us—yet. Understand?"

"Yeah," Al said, nodding, "I do. Finally."

"We have to go warn McGonagall now, right?" Scorpius asked when they reached the corridor and Al pulled off the Cloak. Rose shook her head.

"No. Anyone have any parchment?" she asked, and Scorpius produced a roll from his bag. "No, something smaller." Al pulled out a small slip from his pocket and Rose nodded. "Perfect." She took a quill out of her pocket and began to write against the castle wall.

 _Leave the Stone in the Room of Requirement. You're going to have to tell them about the Time-Turner._

"Come on," Rose said. "I'm about to go to the toilets."

They hurried down the hallway to the entrance hall, and Rose saw a girl getting up from the Gryffindor table through the open doors. "Hide! Quickly!" she hissed, and they dived behind the closest staircase. Rose watched as she walked out the doors and down the right corridor to the girls' bathroom, and she swore that she'd never seen anything stranger in her entire life.

"I've got to go put this note in my bag," Rose explained. "Stay here. You can't exactly see yourselves, it'll ruin the whole thing." Al nodded and she ran through the Great Hall doors before she realized she had no excuse for being back so soon. She slipped the note into her sleeve as she approached the table, and Scorpius looked a little confused.

"Hey," he said. "I thought you'd gone to the toilets."

"Yeah, er, I forgot something," she said quickly, opening her bag. She slipped the note in while her hand was in the bag, and pretended to take something out and put it in her pocket.

"What do you need for the bathroom?" Scorpius asked, sounding suspicious.

"…Girl stuff," she said quickly. "You probably don't want to know."

"Nope, not at all, just go," he said quickly, and she hurried back out of the Hall. She rolled her eyes when she reached the stairs again.

"You boys are so disgusted by… girl stuff that you didn't even question it," she said. Scorpius's eyes widened.

"That was… you? Just now?"

"How do I not remember this?" Al asked.

"You were already practically asleep," Scorpius said.

"Okay, now we have to warn McGonagall," she said. "But it has to just be me," she added.

Rose was about to walk out from under the stairs when Al pulled her by the arm back in. "What—?" Rose asked, but understood when she saw herself crossing back into the Great Hall. "Oh. Right."

"All right, go," Scorpius said when the Rose from two hours ago had gone, and she ran up the staircase two flights. She knew McGonagall was somewhere on the floor, and waited on a bench nearby until McGonagall showed up about ten seconds later.

"Professor!" she said, jumping up, and McGonagall looked startled.

"Yes, Miss Weasley?"

"I'm sorry, this is going to sound odd, but Nott is going to attack Hogwarts tonight, and soon," she said.

"Miss Weasley, how do you know this?"

"You have to trust me, Professor. I have to do something, it's important, but I'll be in the Great Hall in a minute or so."

"Miss Weasley, what do you mean?" McGonagall asked, but Rose took off running down the hall, and luckily, the headmistress didn't follow her. She waited about five minutes until she was sure that McGonagall would have been in and left the Great Hall and then ran down the stairs to Al and Scorpius.

"We have to get to the Room of Requirement, come on," she said, and they ran back upstairs to the third floor. They reached the hallway just as their past selves left, and Rose walked back in front of the Room.

 _I need a place to hide something where no one but me will ever find it,_ she thought again, and this time added, _and a place where we can hide too,_ and the same door opened, to her relief. They ran in and sat on the ground near the statue where the Stone lay.

"Well, that was interesting," Scorpius said as the door into the Room disappeared behind them.

"Yeah," Rose said. "We have to wait out the attack now, I suppose."

"That was mad," Al sighed. "I can't believe _we_ were behind everything. And I was so confused the first time…"

"Yeah," Rose said. "I can't believe Barton told him where he really thought we were. Git."

"He was tortured," Scorpius pointed out.

"For ten seconds," Rose scoffed. "James didn't start spilling his secrets."

"It's done," Al shrugged. "Well, I guess, technically not yet, but… you know. He'll be sacked when McGonagall finds out, though. Who do you think is going to be the next Potions master?"

"Probably another evil one," Scorpius muttered.

"This is getting to be ridiculous," Rose said. "I mean, honestly. Can we not have a Potions master for more than one term?"

"Apparently not. At least Rudomin's job isn't cursed anymore. I actually like him."

"Everyone does," Al said. "He's brilliant. Bloody powerful wizard, too. I think he's probably a lot better than he's letting on, and he's pretty impressive as it is. I mean, he took down Nott in seconds."

"Nott was distracted," Scorpius pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but still."

It was quiet for a while, and then Scorpius spoke again. "What do we do with the Stone?"

Rose said hesitantly, "I think it's more trouble than it's worth. I'm sorry, Al."

Al seemed to take a deep breath and said, "Yeah, I know. You're going to have to tell James, though. And we have to keep it safe still."

Rose nodded. "I'm not sure we can," she admitted. "With Nott coming after us for it… I think it needs to be kept safe by someone who knows what they're doing."

"Who?" Scorpius asked. "The Ministry doesn't exactly fit that description."

"We should give it to my dad," Al said. "He knows how to handle this stuff. And didn't McGonagall say it was his?"

"It used to be," Rose said. "I think that could work. Okay, I'll take it. We can give it to him over the summer."

"All right, then," Al said. "Should I—leave the Cloak here? It might be safer here."

Rose shook her head. "No, we need that. Plus, I'm not really sure anyone knows that's a Hallow really. Just McGonagall."

Al nodded and they suddenly heard a crash. "I think they're in again," Scorpius said grimly.

"We'll be safe," Rose said. "He clearly hadn't found us yet."

"Right." They waited for the rest of the attack to be over, but around 10:15 or so, they heard voices approaching the wall that held the door when they had entered the room. The door had disappeared, but they could make out voices from the other side.

"Nothing's happening," a low voice growled. Rose's heart lept when she realized it was Dolohov.

"I know it's here!" another voice, Nott's, exclaimed. "Malfoy told me about it when we were in school. I've never needed to use it, but it seems to be the best option as to how to escape this damned place."

"Well, it's not working," Dolohov said. "If it's even there."

"Of course it's there, you idiot!" he hissed. "Someone could be using it—perhaps this is where the Stone is."

"They can't get in, right?" Al whispered.

"No, the Room doesn't let more than one person use it at once," Rose whispered back.

"I cannot believe those children hid it from us," Nott continued.

"Are you sure they have it at all?" Dolohov asked.

"Of course I'm sure! Who else would Potter entrust it to?"

"If you're right… that's very dark magic. I can't think of anyone giving it to children—"

"Potter does anything and everything to save himself, I've seen it," Nott said. "I had the misfortune of attending six years of school with him."

"Well… I still hope you're wrong about this," Dolohov muttered.

"So do I," Nott said. "It would dilute, possibly forever alter the power the Stone possesses. But how else could Potter have survived?" More footsteps could be heard faintly the other way, and Nott hissed, "Through here!" They disappeared as the other people appeared out side the door.

"I thought I heard them down here, Neville."

"Yeah, so did I, Victor, they probably went this way. Let's keep moving." The professors continued on and Rose sighed.

"They won't find them," she said grimly, and Scorpius nodded.

"What do you think they were talking about?" Al asked.

"I don't know. But it's even more of a reason to ask your dad," Rose said.

Al nodded and they waited for another ten minutes or so. When it was a few minutes past 10:30, Rose stood up.

"We should go back now," she said. They all started to get up and she said, "Al, we should go back under the Cloak." They left the Room of Requirement, Rose taking the Stone from behind the statue and placing it securely into a small pocket of her bag, and slipped through the portrait hole when Rudomin left after telling the House that everything was all right. They walked over to the hallway and saw their past selves disappearing with the Time-Turner. They threw off the cloak once they were gone, and walked back out into the common room.

"I'm exhausted," Al said. "I'll see you in the morning."

"I'm going with you," Scorpius said. "Night, Weasley." They walked over to the boys' stairs, and Rose turned towards the girls'. She wanted nothing more than to fall asleep, and even thinking about Nott escaping wasn't even enough to keep her awake for very long that night.


	25. King's Cross Station

**Hi everyone! Thank you all so much for reading! This is the last chapter of this book, but the fourth book will be up on my profile in a couple days. It'll be called Rose Weasley and the Army's Return. Please let me know what you thought of this story! Thanks again! -Kelly**

CHAPTER 25

KING'S CROSS STATION

 **YOU-KNOW-WHO FOLLOWERS ATTACK HOGWARTS STUDENTS**

 _This past Friday, June 5_ , _wanted extremist wizard Theodore Nott and several escaped Azkaban inmates known to have had ties to You Know Who years ago succeeded in their attempt to breach the security of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at approximately nine o'clock at night. Nott and his followers fought a rather short-lived battle with the Aurors meant to be guarding the doors to the castle, killing Auror Gwendolyn Prince, and afterwards walked through the front doors of the school. The defense provided by the faculty of Hogwarts proved insufficient as well, since Nott and Antonin Dolohov reached the common room of Gryffindor house and began terrorizing the young students. Nott was finally apprehended with the joint efforts of students and part of Hogwarts faculty, though both men managed to escape before Ministry officials arrived on the scene. This is surely disturbing news, and speaks volume about the caliber of the security detail posted at Hogwarts. The entire search for Theodore Nott, including its several consequential events such as Auror security at the school, has been far from transparent to the press and to the general public. Could that mean that there is something going on within the ranks of the security, that seems so interested in keeping their movements secret. "Ms. Skeeter, there is a reason we cannot always be completely transparent," an irritable-looking Harry Potter, Head of the Auror office said in a statement given to us last night. "Dark wizards can also read your paper." This lack of concern regarding the security of Hogwarts students in Mr. Potter is alarming to say the least, considering all three of his children attend the school and two of them reside in the House attacked on Friday. In fact, inside sources claim that two students were harmed in the attack, one of them being 15-year-old James Potter, Mr. Potter's eldest son. Sources suggest that the young Mr. Potter was injured in a direct confrontation with Nott himself. When asked about this, Mr. Potter refused further comment and magically locked the door to the Auror office with impressive force. The other student reportedly injured was Scorpius Malfoy, the 14-year-old estranged son of public figure and rumored alchemist Draco Malfoy. The boy was, according to reports, attempting to protect Rose Weasley and Albus Potter, Mr. Potter's niece and younger son, when he was injured. Mr. Malfoy was unavailable for comment regarding his son. Suffice it to say that this reporter is concerned for the safety of the Hogwarts student body when they return for the next term in September—perhaps more so than the Auror office meant to be protecting them._

"Hey, look at this, Rosie, I'm famous," James said, shoving the Prophet article in Rose's face when she entered the train compartment with Al and Scorpius. "I mean, you lot are all in here too but I'm the heroic one."

"Get over yourself, Potter," Roxanne laughed.

"It literally says I was hurt trying to protect them, Potter," Scorpius scoffed.

"You got Stunned, it barely counts," James muttered.

"Really, though, all this is going to do is get people to support whatever crazy takeover they've got planned next year," Rose said.

"Well, sure," James said. "The Prophet's controlled by the Ministry, everyone knows that."

"Not everyone, though that'd be nice," Roxanne muttered.

Hugo walked in with Lily then and slumped down on the bench. "Mum sent me a Howler this morning, Rose. Apparently she got a call from Collin's dad. People from his school tried the Skiving Snackboxes and they made them really ill. More than normal."

"You mean Muggles?" Roxanne asked, looking very interested. "Really? Dad's never tested them on Muggles, how long were they sick?"

Rose gave Roxanne a look and said, "Well, Hugo, she did tell you to stop selling them to him."

"I didn't know this would happen!" he exclaimed. "And anyway, what's the point of a Howler? I'll be home for dinner!"

"Maybe she just couldn't handle letting you get away with it that long," Lily laughed.

"Shut up, Lily."

Lily shook her head. "At least Collin'll be here next year."

"Yeah. And Louis will be too!"

"And Lorcan and Lysander," Lily added, smiling a little.

"And Charlie Longbottom, I think."

James glanced over at Rose in horror. "So many first years," he mouthed and Rose couldn't help but laugh.

Soon, Molly appeared in the doorway, followed by a bored-looking Lucy. "James! You were supposed to go to the end of year prefect meeting!"

"Merlin, Molly, you've graduated. It's over. Stop telling me what to do," James groaned, and Molly stomped off, looking upset. Lucy rolled her eyes.

"She's not taking the graduating thing well. She likes being in school, somehow," she explained. "I'd better follow her. See you later."

As Lucy ran off, Scorpius asked, "So, er, I'm going back to your friend Luna's, right?"

"Oh," Rose said, frowning. "I'm not really sure."

"I'm sure they've got it sorted out," Al said. "Maybe you're staying with us!"

James looked alarmed and Scorpius rolled his eyes. "Relax, Potter, I doubt that's what's happening."

Several hours later, they pulled into King's Cross and Al's eyes widened as he watched the platform come into view from his window seat. "Er… Scorpius? You'd better come look at this."

"What?" Scorpius asked, getting up to see through the window, and Rose followed him. Her heart sank as she was sure Scorpius's did when she saw Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy standing on the platform, solemnly looking at the train.

"Er, let's go, guys," James said to Lily, and they quickly exited the car with Roxanne following quickly behind.

"Hugo, come on," she hissed at Hugo, who was adamantly refusing to leave.

"I can't go out there, my mum's furious."

"Grow up, you're a Gryffindor, aren't you?"

"That's not really what that means! And anyway, James is scared of _his_ mum!" Hugo complained as she pulled him out of the compartment. Rose turned to Scorpius, who she could see was rooted firmly to the spot, staring out the window.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Not really," he said.

"Right… we'll walk out with you if you want," she offered and he looked at her, panicked.

"I—I'm not talking to them, I need to get out of here," he said urgently and Rose sighed.

"You can't, they're your parents…"

"No they're not!" he said firmly. "Why does no one understand that? I thought you understood that at least," he added, looking hurt.

Rose shook her head quickly. "That's not what I meant. I meant that they're going to make you talk to them. But we'll stand right there with you, okay?"

He looked at the two of them. "Do you promise not to leave me with them?" he asked quietly, and Rose nodded.

"Not if you don't want us to, promise," Al said.

"Okay, let's go," he said, barely audibly, and Rose and Al walked with him slowly off of the train. Rose saw Scorpius's parents look at them when they stepped off, and his mother looked like she might start crying. Rose walked with him until they were about five feet away from them, and they stopped, all five staring at one another silently. Rose was sure that this was quite possibly the most awkward situation she had been in to date, and finally Mrs. Malfoy spoke.

"Er, hello…" she said quietly.

"Hi," Scorpius said shortly.

"Rose, isn't it?" Mr. Malfoy interjected awkwardly, glancing at them. "And Albus?" He held out his hand, and neither shook it initially, Rose glancing at Scorpius, asking him what to do.

 _Just shake his hand, whatever. It'll just be more awkward if you don't_ , Rose heard him say in her head, and she shook Mr. Malfoy's hand, as did Al after her.

"I'm glad you've made friends you… get along with. And you're in Gryffindor, that's… nice," he said, glancing at the scarf draped over Scorpius's trolley.

"What are you doing here?" Scorpius asked, seeming to be avoiding eye contact with him.

"We… we're here to take you home," Mrs. Malfoy said, and Scorpius scoffed.

"If you are, you might as well leave now."

"Scorpius, listen. I know I've made mistakes."

Scorpius raised an eyebrow. "You think? You left me with _him!_ You didn't care about anything but your bloody stupid alchemy quest or whatever. And now you want to take me back to him?"

"No, he's not there, Scorpius, he's been arrested," Mr. Malfoy said quietly. Scorpius blinked, shocked. Rose was astounded that the Daily Prophet article hadn't mentioned it. Scorpius seemed to be thinking the same thing.

"I would've heard about that," he said.

"It's being kept quiet," Mr. Malfoy explained. "Your grandmother's in London with his attorney. He's going in front of the Wizengamot sometime in the next few months. Though they are trying to push the date back as much as possible, to make preparations in case… he's not acquitted."

"What's he been arrested for?"

"They've apparently found evidence that he was not under the influence of the Imperius Curse during the Wars."

"Took them long enough."

Mr. Malfoy looked uncomfortable. "Yes, well… we've come to tell you that we had no idea that the severity of his… policies hadn't decreased. He led us to believe he had changed. I was too distracted to really notice otherwise. I'm sorry for that."

"You did whatever he told you to. You looked away when he wanted you to," Scorpius muttered.

"I know. And I want to be better. I want to make it up to you. I don't really believe any of that anymore, you know that."

"You pretend to when it suits you."

"Scorpius…" he sighed. "Let me prove to you that things will be different. Just for the summer. After that I won't protest your decision. Please." Scorpius glanced at Rose and said, "The Raes don't come over anymore. Lucius was trying to arrange a marriage."

Mr. Malfoy seemed to wince at Scorpius saying 'Lucius', but nodded. "Fine."

"I can have friends over, too. Whatever friends I want," he added.

Mr. Malfoy nodded, and Mrs. Malfoy turned to Rose and Al and added, "You're welcome anytime. I'm so grateful for what you've done to help Scorpius."

Scorpius and Mr. Malfoy were still staring at each other evenly, and Rose sent him a thought.

 _You don't have to. Or if you want to, we'll come over, you can come over to the Burrow, wherever._

 _I know… is it terrible I want to?_

 _No, you can choose whatever you want._

 _Do you think they're lying?_

 _I don't think so,_ Rose thought, though she wasn't sure whether or not she believed that in Mr. Malfoy's case. _At least your mother isn't._

 _I… I don't know, I just… they really didn't do much to me, it was my grandparents more than them._

 _It's your decision, Scorpius,_ Rose thought.

 _I think I'm going to try._

 _Okay. That's okay._

"Fine," Scorpius muttered. "The summer. Fine."

Mrs. Malfoy hugged him and he stayed stiff, turning to Rose and Al when she finally broke away.

"I'll see you guys, I guess," he said, his voice sounding shaky.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Al asked nervously.

"…No. I think I should, though. I don't know."

"You can write to us whenever you want," Rose said, and Scorpius nodded.

"Yeah, sure, Weasley. You don't have to come over, though. It's kind of… gloomy, nothing like your house."

"We will if you want us to," Rose said. Scorpius shrugged.

"Maybe. I'll talk to you soon, then," he said.

Rose nodded, and then hesitated before hugging him tightly. "You'll be okay," she said quietly, and he nodded.

"… Bye, Rose," he said, and Rose let go, realizing she might be letting on a bit too much if she didn't. He waved to Al and turned around to face his parents. Rose motioned for Al to come with her and they walked over to where they could see their own families standing. As they walked further and further from the Malfoys Rose thought about the flashes from Scorpius's mind in first year and felt sick to her stomach—maybe he'd made the wrong choice. But then, he was living with his grandparents then, and she didn't really even know his parents. She couldn't really be sure—but anyone who could leave him in that situation…

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Al asked her.

"No," Rose said, "but… it could be. I don't know. I'm not really sure about anything anymore." As they walked, Rose thought about everything that had happened in the past year and realized just how true that really was.


End file.
